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 information
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
