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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