BRESLAU.
121
Among a number of two-roomed tenements visited for the purposes of
this Report the following, which were being let at rents falling within the above
limits, may be taken as average samples.
1. Tchepenerstrasse in Nikolai Vorstadt:—Each tenement consisted of a
large room, used both as general living room and bedroom, and a kitchen. In
both rooms the height from floor to ceiling was 9 feet. The living room, which
had two windows, measured 17 feet by 13 feet, and the kitchen, with one
window, 12 feet by 9 feet. Each tenement had a separate vestibule and the
use of one of the two water-closets on the stair landing ; also the usual cellar
and attic compartments, with the use of the general washhouse on the ground
floor and the general drying loft beneath the rafters. The rents were 15s. per
month, i.e. 3s. 5d. per week. (For precisely similar accommodation in the
newest tenement houses in the same street, as much as 18s. per month
(4s. 2d. per week) was being charged when the windows gave on the street.)
2. Courts off the Friedrich Wilhelmstrasse and Antonienstrasse (older and
more central parts of town) :—In old tenement houses, in the inner town,
dating from the year 1692, and situated in courts approached from the street
through archways, rents of 15s. to 17s. per month (3s. bd. to 3s. 116?. per week)
were being paid for two-roomed tenements in which, though one of the rooms
was windowless, both were fairly large and lofty. The dimensions were found
to be, in the living room, 24 feet by 13 feet ; in the bedroom, 24 feet by 10 feet.
The height from floor to ceiling was 11 feet.
The water-closets of these tenements were in the courts in a number
corresponding to one for every three families.
It will be understood that except water-rate, no element of rates or taxes is
comprised in the rents stated above. Here as in other Prussian (and, indeed,
most German) towns the principal source of municipal revenue consists of a
local income tax levied simultaneously with the State Income Tax, and standing
in a fixed ratio to the latter. In Breslau the municipal income tax is now
136 per cent, of the State Income Tax. All incomes of over £45 a year are
subject to both. The amount payable in respect of municipal income tax on
the various income classes within which most workmen’s families in Breslau
would fall, are shown below.
Income Class.
Over £45 to £5,2 10.s....
„ £52 10s. to £60...
„ £60 to £67 10s....
„ £67 10s. to £75...
„ £75 to £82 10s....
„ £82 10s. to £90...
„ £90 to £105 ...
Annual Municipal
Income Tax.
8s. 2d.
12s. 3d.
16s. 4d.
21s. 9d.
28s. Id.
35s. 4c?.
42s. 2d.
Retail Prices.
The retail shops for the sale of household provisions in Breslau have a
powerful competitor in the Breslauer Consumverein, which is the largest and
one of the oldest of the many Co-operative Store Societies in Germany, and has
66 branch stores scattered throughout the different parts^ of the town. Its
membership, drawn from all classes of society, numbered 8o,o()0 in 1905 and its
sales in that year reached the sum of £809,000, on which a dividend (on
purchases) at the rate of 11 per cent, was returned. The society owns the
largest steam bakery in Breslau, its output of bread in 1905 amounting to
171 tons, in the making of which 99 journeymen bakers were employed. The
existence of this society on the one hand and of certain large concerns of the
“ Universal provider ” type on the other has led to the formation of counter
organisations among the shopkeepers. Thus some 350 of the latter have
formed a &xzr-Fergm RrWawer a society
whose members undertake to give a discount of 5 per cent, on all cash
Q
29088
