THE COST OF LIVING.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4298, 6 March 1901, Page 4

THE COST OF LIVING.

In vie*.v of what the Federal tariff is going to be, a great war is waging between the protectionists of Victoria and the freetraders in New South Wales. It is an interesting conflict, and some of its phases cannot but interest the people of this country. Over the question of the cost of living in freetrade New South Wales as against the cost of living m any other State, Victoria, for instance, which has a large measure of protection, the Victorians seem to have scored. At all events, the freetraders have been silenced on tha point until some one's ingenuity discovers a flaw in the Victorian argument. The Victorians have been bold. They have taken Mr T. A. Coghlan, the statistician of New South Wales, and set him in the forefront of tha battle, literally against his employers. This is fair enough if Mr Coghlan’s figures are not misapplied and wrong conclusions not deducted from the facts which he faithfully presents. Yet we fear that that is exactly what the “Age” of Melbourne has done. It confuses the terms “expenditure per head of the population” with the “cost of living.’’ They are not convertible terms, and those who know anything of the first principles of political economy, despised as that science now is, will realise that a confusion of these terms- must play havoc with arguments of all publicists. In his work dealing with the “Seven Colonies of Australasia, 1899-1900,” Mr Coghlan has a chaptea- treating of the food supply and the cost of living. “In certain colonies,’’he says, “Western Australia and Queensland, where there is a Targe adult population, the expenditure was probably higher, but in tha others less, than in New South Wales.” The Sydney statist goes further, and observes: “The conditions of life and the j standard of living are much the same j in all the colonies, but it would undoubtedly bd incorrect to assume that! the average expenditure throughout Aus- j tialasia is equal to that of New South; Wales.” Thus, after making all allowances, Mr Coghlan sets down the annual expenditure per inhabitant —New South Wales at £39 14s lid, and for the |

rest of Australia at £2G 19s sd. The

■Age,’’ therefore, f comes to the conclusion that the cost of living is less by £2 los Id per head in protected Victoria than in freetrade New South Wales. Indeed. going through the various items

the protectionist o! mu m ciously asserts that under frccirm;? it casts 7s

Sd ’per head more per annum for ciothing than it dors under protection; Is «;d more for tobacco. 19s 3d more fur toed, lid more - for books, ami us 2d mare id hon.tohu.ld expanses not t tberwise pr, - vided for. Thus it seomr, iO have pioiud its ease.

It. is, however, misleading to affirm that Mr Coghlan’s figure-, showing the average expenditure per inhabitant pei annum, represent the cost- of living, and it is erroneous to say that because a man spends more it is. on account ot freetrade being the policy of the country in which he lives. Tins argument is evidently put forward with a view to obscure, tho issue. Mr Caghlan docs not mean “cost of living” when he writes “expenditure per inhabitant" ; and it stands to reason that, wherever pooptare able to spend more, there the standard of comfort will ho higher. The difference of £2 ICs in the . ypenditure pur inhabitant per annum :r between New South Wales, and say, Vmlm-ia, regarded as typical of the re; o! ustrp.lia. goes unmistakably to show Hint the people, of Hie Mother State are able to spend more upon themselves than in I ictoria. Tins may, or it may not, lift due to. lieetrado. it may only serve I o doraoustraie that Victorians are not so oi so well paid ns the inhabitants of New South Wales, and therefore cannot afford to expend so much in. living; and the lessened expenditure in Victoria will be the measure of whatever variation there is in the average standard of living in the two States. If we cite tho expenditure of the people in other countries, our meaning will ho plain. In Great Britain the expenditure per head per annum is, according to tho late Mr Mullmll’s “Dictionary of Statistics,” £2O 14s 9d, wheireas in Portugal it is £ll 3s (id. Would any sane person employing the “Age’s” argument, affirm that the people of Portugal are better eif, have higher wages, and enjoy a. higher standard of comfort than the inhabitants of Great. Britain? Yet only in a lesser degree must a, similar distinction he drawn between'the people! of Vie! aria and those of New South Wales,