Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 866449027

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-93831

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Cost of living in German towns

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1908

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (LXI, 548 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

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PART IL—COMPARISON OP CONDITIONS IN GERMANY AND THE UNITED KINGDOM. Id the following pages the data collected in England and in Germany, as regards the rents of working-class dwellings, the prices paid by the working classes for articles of common consumption, wages and hours of labour, are brought together and compared. Such a comparison is full of difficulties arising from the differences of national habits and national organisation, but it is as well to remember that they also ocour, though in a less aggravated form, in comparing even different parts of the United Kingdom itself, e.g., England and Scotland. The difficulties of comparing rents in England and Scotland owing to the difference in types of housing, or food prices in view of the distinct national dietaries, were briefly indicated in the report on the English Towns (Cd. 3864, pp. xx.-xxi.). In section (i.) the rents and housing of the working-class tenements of the two countries are compared ; section (ii.) then deals with budgets and prices, and section (iii.') with wages and hours of labour. Finally, in the last section (iv.) the combined results are summarised. Before this comparison could be fully carried out it was necessary to supplement in some respects the data for the United Kingdom contained in the report already mentioned. The information collected in the course of that enquiry as regards hours of labour was given, in the reports on the several towns, only as regards the building trade. Data as to this trade, engineering and printing have now been summarised in one table (vide Table D (ii.), p. Ivi). Further, the German system of local taxation being wholly different from the English, and local taxes not being levied upon a rent basis or included in the rents paid by the working-classes, it was necessary to obtain more infor mation as regards the incidence of local taxation on working-class dwellings in England than was available in any official publication ; the results of the special enquiry made for this purpose are briefly referred to below (p. xlii). (i.) Housing and Rents. The essential difference between the housing of the working classes in Germany and in England will have been clearly indicated in the preceding part of this general report. The German working classes are housed almost exclusively in large tenement buildings, frequently constructed round a central courtyard, each building containing a number of separate dwellings ; in this respect the housing in Germany resembles the Scotch type of housing more nearly than the English. On the other hand, the English working man for the most part, if we except a few towns chiefly in the north of England, rents a small separate house. In the case of Germany, tenements of two rooms and three rooms are the most frequent for working-class households ; in England, tenements of four and five rooms are the predominant types. At the same time the rooms of the German tenement are as a rule distinctly both larger and loftier than the English. The predominant rents for tenements of two, three and four rooms in Germany were given in the Table on p. xiii. A corresponding Table for England and Wales will be found on p. xiv. of the report on the United Kingdom. Bringing the figures together''we have the following comparison :— Predominant Range of WeeJdy Rents in England and Wales and Germany. Number of Rooms per Tenement. Predominant Range of Weekly Rents in England and Wales. Two rooms ... Three rooms ... Four rooms ... 3s. to 3s. 6c?. 3s. 9d. „ 4s. 6d. 4s. 6c?. „ 5s. 6d. Germany. 2s. 8c?. to 3s. 6d. 3s. 6d. „ 4s. 9c?. 4s.'3c?. ,, 6s. Ratio of Mean Predominant Rent in Germany to that in England and Wales, taken as 100. 95 100 102-5

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