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