742 REPORT— 1903. 



1,350 millions for Canada, 1,100 millions for Australasia, and 3,000 millions for 

 India. 



Attention is next called to the report of a Committee of the British Associa- 

 tion, consisting of Professor Jevons, Mr. Leone Levi, Mr. Stephen Bourne, and 

 others, who investigated in 1881 and 1882 the subject of the actual expenditure by 

 the people of the United Kingdom, and reported to the meetings of the Association 

 at Southampton in 1881 and Southport in 1882. In their first report, dealing 

 with a total of 878 millions of expenditure, the Committee expressed the opinion 

 that 500,400,000/., or 56-9 per cent., were spent on food and drink; 147,800,000/., 

 or 16-8 per cent., on dress ; 121,700,000/. on ' house,' including house-rent, 

 furniture, coal, gas, and water ; while among other items there were 1'5 per cent, 

 spent on tobacco, 1'3 per cent, on education (less than on tobacco), 1'4 per cent, 

 on ' Church ' (also less than on tobacco), 0'8 per cent, on ' literature,' 0-6 per cent, 

 on newspapers, and 07 per cent, each on ' theatres and music-halls ' and ' other 

 amusements.' It is pointed out that such a distribution of expenditure is not 

 surprising to those acquainted with family budgets. The bulk of what people 

 spend naturally goes primarily to food, clothing, shelter, and defence ; and the 

 miscellaneous and what may be called the higher ends of civilised existence have 

 less proportionate amounts devoted to them. 



Applying with some variation the principles and methods followed twenty 

 years ago, we obtain the following analysis of a sum of 1,386 millions expended at 

 the present time : — 



According to this the proportion of the food-and-drink bill is apparently less 

 than in the report of the Committee of 1881 ; but this is largely due to a difference 

 in the mode of arranging the figures. If the last item of all, the cost of distribu- 

 tion, were spread proportionally over the earlier items, and the taxes on tea, 

 .sugar, beer, and other articles were also included with them, the food-and-drink 

 bill would be more nearly 600 than between 400 and 500 millions. Another 

 cause of the change is the fall of prices since 1881. Generally the order of the 

 items of expenditure is much the same as twenty years ago. A similar table for 

 the whole empire would show some variation, as a poor community like India 

 spends more in proportion for food, while the self-governing colonies are exempt, 

 or exempt themselves, from defence items, which constitute a large part of the 

 expenditure for national services in the United Kingdom. 



Dlscusfslng the question of what expenditure should be, the Jirst point we raise 

 relates to the food-and-drink bill. It is suggested that there is probably economic 

 waste in some directions, especially in the expenditure by the artisan and wealthier 

 classes on meat and alcohol ; but equally there are large numbers of the people 

 insufficiently fed, though we may not accept fully the recent inferences commonly 

 made from the writings of Mr. Rowntree and Mr. Charles Booth. Attention is 

 drawn to the economic gulf separating the United Kingdom and the self-governing 

 colonies from India and like parts of the empire occupied by subject races. We 

 find that forty-two millions of people in the United Kingdom consume in food and 

 drink alone, if we take the expenditure at the retail point, an amount equal to the 

 whole income of three hundred millions of people in India. 



A second point raised relates to the expenditure on housing. Great as the 

 increase of this item has been since the report of twenty years ago — the expend;- 



