Labour 



and socialistic, and leads to strikes, or, worst of 

 all, abolishes thrift." I wonder if those who talk 

 of discouraging thrift have the faintest idea 

 what a workman's life is like? Let them try to 

 rear a family on 189. per week, and they would 

 discover that unless every day they performed a 

 miracle of thrift they would soon go want- 

 ing. 



Seebohm Rowntree has devoted much time to 

 these questions, and h.13 results are accepted as a 

 standard by sociologists. He asserts that in an 

 ordinary town, such as York, a workman to bring 

 up an average family in decency and reasonable 

 comfort, providing sufficient clothing to protect 

 them from cold, enough food to keep them effi- 

 cient, a decent roof over their heads, but without 

 any extras such as attendance when sick, all this 

 he says cannot be done under 21s. 8d. per week. 

 This he calls the subsistence line, and draws our 

 attention to the appalling facl: that several mil- 

 lions in Great Britain are below the standard, that 

 something like one-third of our countrymen 

 never have decently enough — a hard nut for us to 

 crack. The rural labourer lives more cheaply than 

 the urban, and taking everything into considera- 

 tion I think that 17s. a week, together with a 

 garden or allotment, represents the 21s. 8d. in the 

 city. It is true the countrymen have larger families, 



39 



