tee
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The inspection of facfories and machinery was established under an
act of Althingi 1928, containing various provisions respecting the ar-
rangement of work, to protect the lives and health of the workpeople,
and prescribing special care and inspection of steam-boilers and ma-
chinery, which without strict preventive measures might be dangerous
to life or detrimental to the health.
PRICES AND WAGES
As in other countries, there have in Iceland been enormous changes
in the level of prices since the outbreak of the Great War; but avail-
able statistics relate only to the fluctuations of prices in Reykjavik.
Data concerning retail prices quoted for 50—60 different articles of
food, fuel and light have, for a number of years, been collected once
every quarter (and since autumn 1925 once every month) by the Sta-
tistical Bureau. Index-numbers are then compiled illustrative of the
fluctuations in the prices of these goods. But another set of index-
numbers for total cost of living is prepared once a year, in October,
based on the retail prices ruling in Reykjavik in the beginning of
that month, and on several additional data respecting other items of
household expenditure.
A calculation has been made as fo how the expenditure of an a-
verage family (consisting of husband, wife and 3 children) with an
income, in 1914, of 1800 krénur,. was distributed over the various
commodities consumed. Then, on the basis of an unchanged standard
of living and guided by continuous statistical information on retail
prices, the cost of this consumption for the same family at different
times has been calculated. The household budget is divided into the
following 6 groups: 1) foodstuffs, 2) light and fuel, 3) clothing, 4) rent,
5) taxes, 6) sundries. Besides the general index-numbers, special in-
dex-numbers are worked out for each group. In the case of group 6,
which accounts for one-fifth of the expenditure, the index-number is
not based on independent investigations of the fluctuations’ in the
prices of the goods coming under this head, but the price is assumed
to have for this group increased proportionately to those of the goods
included in groups 1—4. According to these calculations the general
index-numbers, since 1914, have been as follows (July 1914 = 100):
