MAKING ENDS MEET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17556, 23 August 1920, Page 4

MAKING ENDS MEET.

.MAINTAINING A FAMILY.

SUPREME COURT DISCUSSION, j [ST XEIECT.&SH.—OWN COBRESFONDBHT.J WELLINGTON. Saturday. At nearly every day's session of the Arbitration Court when it was last in Wellington, the question of the cost .of living was argued from every point of view, and many figures were quoted from all sorts of sources. A ray of light came from another judicial source to-day. In the course of evidence in a Supreme Court case, interesting' evidence was given by Mr. J. R. McClune, assistant officer, in charge of the industrial and special schools branch of the Education Department, as to the. cost of maintaining parsons at the present time in food and lodging. He said that at the Wellington Receiving Home there was a staff of four, and fifteen inmates. The estimate for the feeding of adults, based on actual experience, was 14s per week .per head Jar maintenance alone. The cost worked cut daily as follows: —Meat Aii, bread sjd, groceries 4'd, milk 2£d, vegetables and fruit 3£d, lighting, cooking, and firing 6d —total of 2s a dayir-If-Is aidayswere. allowed for rent then .the cost.of upkeep of one adult individual—board : and lodging—would be £1 Is per week. The institution :in question wasv supplied; with vegetables -ana fruit from the ;Weraros and: Nelson : institutions: -~ The supplies were generally distributed from a centra? source. >>' .',': '':'o --C-- y- -:'/"*-"'. : 4?/?"^S.r

j,,. The question was then raised by counsel for tiie plaintiff as to how it was possible for a family of nine adults and one child to live on an .income of £5 13s a week. Out of this 16a a -week'.'was paid for domestic i help and 15s for ;rent, i leaving £4, for maintenance—under 1% a weei per head for. food. 'V ,- ■>-'.>.,'''. " ?: >:,. The witness declined to express any opinion on. the point' / His Honor (Sir' ; Basset6 r Edwards) remarked that these people probably lived better than he did. "Nothing is more modest than my housekeeping," he said. " I can't get service, f and <it has :to ,he modest." He was surprised - that in a household of nine adults they kept a servant. ?" ' \i , 'H'i %.-. ":-:. "'.*. , ;■ .'v./ .; .'