CONSUMPTION IN CANADA—DAVIDSON. 31 
price warranted—if the community was to continue to spend the 
same money per head in 1895as in 1880. Tea, however has not 
increased so much as the price has declined. The consumption 
is 48 per cent. greater than in 1880, but the 1895 price is 35 per 
cent. lower than the 1880 price. To preserve the same expendi- 
ture of income on this article the consumption should have risen 
54 per cent., or 6 per cent. more than it has risen. 
From this comparison of consumption and prices it is evident 
that there bas been not only an increase of well-being due to the 
larger quantity of these commodities used, but an increase of 
consumption power as well, and judging from the instances 
before us, an increase of consumption power of considerable 
extent. We can carry the investigation a little further, to find 
out, so far as figures can tell us, how far the well-being of the 
community has increased. The most obvious method of esti- 
mating this increase is by constructing an index number for 
consumption. Into the problem whether a permanent index 
number of consumption is possible, it is not necessary to enter; 
the following attempt is intended only as a method of illustra- 
tion, not as an indication of cause. It is the more important to 
state this limitation, as the year 1880 was, as the table shews, a 
year of very low consumption—a fact which was not apparent to 
the writer till this calculation, the last made for this paper, was 
made. So long as the result is not used by politicians for 
partisan purposes, and is regarded merely as a summary of the 
earlier table, it does not matter much which year is taken, 
The method of construction was to take the seven articles— 
tea, coffee, sugar, dried fruits, spirits, beer and tobacco—as typical 
of the consumption power of the community, and to take the 
quantity consumed per head in 1880 in each case as equal to 100 
--the sum 700 being taken as the index number of the consump- 
tion of that year. The articles are, of course, not all equally 
important, and therefore it must be repeated that the index 
number is intended for purposes of illustration only :— 
