xli 
The Table shews an approximate equality of rents that is somewhat 
surprising, more particularly when it is remembered that the English rents 
cover all local taxation while the German rents do not, local taxation in 
Germany being paid in the form of an income tax. If the mean of the index 
numbers in the last column might be taken as representing roughly the rent 
level in Germany as compared with that in England, we should find the German 
rent level slightly, though very slightly, the lower of the two, in the proportion 
of 99 : TOO. A comparison on these lines, though apparently straightforward, 
is however liable to be somewhat misleading, for the reason that rents of two, 
three and four-roomed tenements were not obtained from all the towns 
investigated in each case. It is necessary, therefore, to adopt some more perfect 
method of comparison less open to possible bias. 
This has been done by reworking all the rent index numbers for German 
towns to the basis used for the United Kingdom, viz., the mean predominant 
rents of tenements in the middle zone of London. In the Table below are 
given the rent index numbers so obtained for the towns investigated in Germany 
as compared with London, the index numbers having been calculated precisely 
as in the case of the towns of the United Kingdom, and being directly 
comparable with the figures of the Report on those towns (Cd. 3864, p. xv. 
and Table E, p. 1.). 
Rent Index Numbers of German Towns estimated on the London basis, in 
descending order. 
Town. 
Berlin 
Stuttgart 
Düsseldorf 
Hamburg 
Aschaffenburg 
Dortmund ... 
Mannheim ... 
Essen 
Königsberg ... 
Munich 
Solingen 
Index 
No. 
Town 
100 
97 
79 
70 
69 
68 
66 
63 
62 
62 
62 
Elberfeld 
Barmen 
Bochum 
Dresden 
Breslau 
Nuremberg 
Remscheid 
Bremen 
Leipzig 
Aachen 
Crefeld 
Index 
No. 
Towr 
58 
57 
57 
57 
56 
56 
56 
55 
54 
53 
53 
Plauen 
Dantzig 
Mülhausen 
Stettin 
Königshütte 
Magdeburg 
Chemnitz 
Brunswick 
Zwickau 
Stassfurt 
Oschersleben 
Index 
No. 
53 
49 
49 
48 
47 
44 
42 
39 
38 
34 
28 
The whole series of numbers is very similar to that given for English towns, 
but the rent levels of German towns show a somewhat greater variation than 
those in the English table. Of the 73 English towns 40, or 55 per cent., fall 
within the group of index numbers 50 to 59 ; 23 per cent, have higher index 
numbers and 22 per cent, lower. Of the German towns 12, or only 36 per 
cent., fall within the same group 50 to 59, while 33 per cent, of the towns show 
higher index numbers and 30 per cent, lower. For the English towns there 
are 36 index numbers higher than 55, and 35 lower, and the arithmetic mean 
is 56'2 ; for the German towns there are 15 index numbers higher than 56 and 
15 lower, and the arithmetic mean is 57*0. The ratio of the arithmetic mean 
for Germany to that in England is 101 : 100, and this ratio, or the index 
number 101, is taken for the purposes of this report, as representing approximately 
the rent level in Germany as compared with England. 
It is evident from the result of this method of calculation and from the 
preceding estimate that there is no great difference one way or the other between 
the rents payable for a given number of rooms of working-class accommodation 
in the industrial towns of the two countries. 
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