COST OF LIVING.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 89, 15 April 1913, Page 8

COST OF LIVING.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The enclosed advertisement ot Upton's in a London paper is for ljlbs. of margarine and 31bs. of sugar for 1/2. Being Lipton's the articles will be true. Friends residing in England tell mc they (the family) prefer the good margarine of to-day to average butter, and it also keeps better. The servants demand, and, of course, get butter. By this day's mail I have also quotations for same articles at Munich (Bavaria), St. Gailen (Swisse), this latter a manufacturing town, which Munich scarcely is. These prices are what relatives, who live there, pay at present:—Beef steak, per. lb., 1/11; beef, ribs, per lb., 1/1, up; mutton, legs, per lb., 1/1; butter, per lb., 1/5; cheese, per lb., 1/10; bread (white), per lb., 2d; tea, per l'b., 5/ (not national drink); coffee, per lb., 1/, up; sugar, per lb., 4d, possibly lamp. I should surmise that some of these can be had for less, in lower qualities. So far as families arc in question, in both they will rule larger than English, and I never observed, personally, j the squalor which is so common in many i English hrwns.—l am, etc.. J. CLARE. (To the Editor.) Sir, —By last week's mail I received a letter from my father in London. It contained the folflatohrg passage:—"A few days ago I was passing the New Zealand ofiices, and thinking I should I'ik-c some anore information than you have given mc, about the country you arc living in, I went in and asked if they had any publications about the country. They gave mc a little booklet, Avhich I am enclosing. Its contents, in many instances, do not agree with Avhat you have told mc. In particular, you have always led mc to believe that living is very much dearer in New Zealand than •here. The book 6ays that it is cheaper. To quote the actual words of the booklet: The cost of living is, on the average, lower than in England.' If Auckland is so dear, why not go and live in one of the other towns. Some of them must be cheaper," etc., etc. Can any kind friend inform the writer in what town in New Zealand is living cheaper than in England?—l am, etc., "COCKNEY."