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The following table shows the comparative cost in the two countries of the articles in the average British budget for which comparative prices can be given:

COST OF THE AVERAGE BRITISH WORKINGMAN'S WEEKLY BUDGET (EXCLUDING COMMODITIES FOR WHICH COMPARATIVE PRICES CAN NOT BE GIVEN) AT THE PREDOMINANT PRICES PAID BY THE WORKING CLASSES OF (1) ENGLAND AND WALES (EXCLUSIVE OF LONDON) AND (2) THE UNITED STATES.

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Index numbersEngland and Wales, October, 1905; United States, February, 1909..
Adjusted for February, 1909..

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1 Mean of colonial or "foreign" and Danish.

* Mean of British or home-killed and of foreign or colonial.

From the foregoing table it appears that the English housewife would have had to pay $4.755 at American prices for the same quantities of those articles of food which cost at English prices in October, 1905, $3.317, or as adjusted to the prices of February, 1909, about $3.44. Her weekly expenditure in the United States would thus be raised on the adjusted prices about $1.32, or 38 per cent. Of this total increase, however, about 64 cents is due to the much higher price of baker's bread in the United States, an item that, as has been seen, does not enter largely into the American workman's budget. The explanation of more than half of the balance of the difference is found in the comparative costs of potatoes, in which the excess in the United States would be equivalent to an expenditure of about 20 cents per week, and of butter, in which the corresponding excess would be about 15 cents per week. Allowing for the adjusted prices as between the two countries, beef, mutton, pork, and bacon combined would have cost about 3 cents more in the United States. The list of commodities is not exhaustive, but, on the basis of comparison adopted, it is, in the opinion of the investigators, sufficiently complete to give a fairly accurate indication of the difference in the cost of food in the two countries.

The most important of the items omitted from the foregoing list of food articles is tea, the price of which is higher in the United States than in England. is supplanted there, as in Germany,

France, and Belgium, by coffee, as the customary domestic beverage. The other most important items omitted are fish and vegetables, for neither of which can any basis of comparison be obtained, and eggs, which have also been regarded as noncomparable because of the variety of brand and quality.

The foregoing figures represent the change in family expenditure that would result if either in the United States or in England an average British workman's family continued to purchase the main articles of food to which it was accustomed and paid American prices for them, leaving out of question either the power or the desire to adjust expenditure to any new channels by which changed price conditions might be accompanied.

But it is apparent from a study of the budgets of American families that there are numerous and important differences in the quantities of the various articles of food consumed. In the following table another comparison has been made of the cost of the wage earner's food budget in the two countries, using as the basis of comparison the quantities found to be ordinarily consumed in the average American workman's family:

COST OF THE AVERAGE AMERICAN WORKINGMAN'S BUDGET (EXCLUDING COMMODITIES FOR WHICH COMPARATIVE PRICES CAN NOT BE GIVEN) AT THE PREDOMINANT PRICES PAID BY THE WORKING CLASSES OF (1) ENGLAND AND WALES (EXCLUSIVE OF LONDON) AND (2) THE UNITED STATES.

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1 That is, American-British (northern).
Mean of colonial or "foreign" and Danish.

* Mean of British or home killed and of foreign or colonial.

The total cost of the average food budget at English prices, adjusted to February, 1909, is about $3.70 per week, or 90.8 cents less than that for the same articles and quantities if bought at American prices.

The ratio of the total cost of the articles of food enumerated in the table at American prices to their cost at English prices is 128 to 100, or adjusted to February, 1909, as 125 to 100, as compared with 138 to 100 in the case of the quantities of the same articles on the basis of the British workman's budget. Of the two ratios, that based upon the quantities of the average British budget is presented by the investigators as more directly concerning the working-class consumer in England, and 138 to 100 is therefore taken in the report as representing from this point of view the relative levels of the cost of food in the United States and in England and Wales in February, 1909.

RENTS AND RETAIL FOOD PRICES COMBINED.

In the following table the cost of food and rent in the various cities has been expressed by means of a combined index number, New York being taken as base or 100. In computing this index number allowance was made for the relative importance of the two forms of expenditure, and this was determined by the general ratio in which these two items stood in the American-British budget. A weight of 3 was therefore given to food prices and of 1 for rents.

RELATIVE LEVEL OF RENT AND FOOD PRICES IN SPECIFIED CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES AS COMPARED WITH NEW YORK CITY.

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In order to secure information in regard to the standards of living in various cities a large number of budgets were secured for wageearning families showing the particulars of family income and of expenditure for food and rent. This information is presented in the report on a nationality basis according to the declared country of birth of the head of the family, but for purposes of the international comparisons the report uses the group representing American and British families of the northern cities.

The particulars sought in connection with these family budgets were mainly confined to those items of domestic expenditure which were most recurrent and most likely to be furnished correctly and the most pertinent to the main comparative object in full. The

only other full particulars obtained were such as were necessary to throw light on the income and composition of the family, including in the last the occupation of the husband and the country of birth of both parents.

In the discussion of the various types represented in the family budgets the report explains that it is necessary to draw attention to the fact that even in relation to the alien people of the United States "American" speedily comes to have a meaning all its own. Were there nothing industrially or socially distinctive, the United States would, indeed, cease to exercise its attractive force, and in various ways, and as regards the mere material standard of comfort, in forms that compare favorably with those that have been left behind, the Americanization of immigrants is apt to begin almost from the moment of their landing.

"Thus, although the industrial status of the bulk of the Italians, Poles, and other Slavonic and allied peoples is different from and lower than that of the bulk of those who are regarded as the true Americans, it is equally true that as measured by the command of material comforts the position of the great bulk, even of such races. as those mentioned, begins at once to be relatively American in standard. Even as regards the poorer industrial classes of the United States, the term 'American' is thus found to have a significance that, covering, it is true, great differences and wide ranges, still represents, even apart from all considerations of political and social environment, something that is not the less definable and real."

Altogether 7,616 family budgets were secured in the course of the investigation. The following table shows the distribution of these budgets among the various nationalities and geographical groups:

CLASSIFICATION OF BUDGETS BY NATIONALITIES.

Nationality.

American-British (including American, Irish, English, Scottish, Welsh, and Canadian):

(1) Northern

(2) Southern..

(3) (American) Southern (broken families)

German (including a few Dutch, Belgian, and Swiss).

Scandinavian (including Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes).

South European (including Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, and Portuguese. A few
French and Syrian budgets have been included here)..

Slavonic and allied peoples (including Bohemians, Croats, Hungarians, Galicians,
Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, Roumanians, and Serbs).
Jewish-from all countries (chiefly Russia).

Negro:

(1) Northern group.. (2) Southern group.

Total.

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It will be seen that the American-British (northern) group, which has been taken as the basis of all comparisons between the United States and England, comprises 3,215 families, or 42.2 per cent of the entire number included in the study.

The distribution of these budgets among the various industrial occupations according to nationality is shown in the following table:

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1 The term "laborer" in the United States is not infrequently used to designate an assistant or helper, and many of these would therefore have been transferred to definite trades had the description been more complete.

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