CONSUMPTION IN CANADA DAVIDSON. 13 



are trustworthy only when they extend over a number of years, 

 and speculative influences can be discounted. An alteration in 

 the tariff, for instance, may affect the imports for a given year, 

 as it did in the case of sugar, and strictly ao average of several 

 years ought to be taken. The census year is no more likety to- 

 escape such fluctuations than any other year ; and it might be 

 seiiously misleading to take the manufacture and importation of 

 textiles as typical. Moreover, there has not as yet been estab- 

 lished in the matter of clothing any standard of consumption as 

 has, in a measure, been done in the case of food. Caprice and 

 local climatic causes have here an undue influence. All we can 

 say is that in Canada the average family spends on the average 

 $83.79 on clothing, the family expenditure in the United States 

 being $112.23 ; in Great Britain, $80.59 ; in Germany, $57.21 ; 

 in France, $72 60 ; in Belgium, $84.61 ; in Switzerland, $65.38*. 

 The statistics available for the further analysis of the expen- 

 diture on rent are not sufficient for the purposes of comparison 

 either of classes or of different periods. With the exception of 

 some interesting sociological studies of a portion of the city of 

 Montreal by Aid. Ames of that city,f we have the Census Reports 

 alone to rely on ; and the Census Reports of 1881 offer but a 

 very meagre amount of information. The Ontario tables quoted 

 above shew that on the average in the province of Ontario the 

 respectable working classes spend 17% of their income in rent. 

 Since there is comparatively little class distinction in Canada, we 

 might, perhaps, assume that 17% represents the propprtion spent 

 by the average Canadian on house rent. In the city below the 

 hill in Montreal rental absorbs, according to Mr. Ames, 18% of 

 the earnings : " For families of the real industrial class 16 per 

 cent, is a fair average. . . It is among the well-to-do and the 

 very poor that rental is permitted to absorb from 20 to 25 per 

 cent, of the earnings." (The City Below the Hill, p. 40). Mr. 



*U. S. Commissioner of Labor, Report 1891, Vol. II., pp. 864-5. 



t (1) The City Below the H 11 : privately printed. (2) Incomes, Wages and Rents in 

 Montreal (U. S. Department of Labor, Bulletin 14, Jan. 1848) ; and a lecture on House. 

 Accommodation which I have been privileged to see in manuscript. 



