HOME PROBLEMS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14044, 29 April 1920, Page 7

HOME PROBLEMS.

Americans say that the price of necessities has doubled since the war (writes an Englishwoman from .SJew York to the "Manchester Guardian.") . Certainly the cost of living in London seems cheap compared with the cost of living in New York. A few things—cotton goods, some boots, electricity, gas, long-distance subway travelling—are (Still cheaper than in our own country. Otherwise America might have been in the' war for the last five, years, and might be as short of necessary commodities as is war-racked Europe. That she is short of nothing at all could be judged by the recent outcry about a sugar shortage. Food generally exceeds even our pre-war ideas of quantity and waste. Butter is everywhere obtainable in any quantity; cream is part of the American birthright. Huge meals are served in the most moderate eating-places, and -it is difficult to remember whether one's own capacity has shrunk or whether one ever envisaged the possibility of making one's w'ay through all of many and large courses. Other commodities than food are available on the same scale for those who have money- to pay for them. The result of high prices upon domestic life is curious. Hotel life goes on apace, but there are no longer enough hotels to contain all the people who want to go to them. Many hotels will not take in visitors who do not engage to stay for a period of months. From every side I people, many of them newly rich or caiight hi the new upheaval, are crowding into the big cities. There is a tremendous run on the smaller apartments. even on single rooms "for married pair." There is no rent limit, and two and. threeroomed flats will fetch anything from £2O a month upwards. I went to look at a furnished apartment consisting of one large living-room, two tiny dark bedrooms, n bath, and what is termed a "kitchenette"—this last is really-a sort of cupboard in the 'wall, ingeniously fitted up with cooking appliances. but frankly debouching into the living-room. It bad been entered on the agent's books as lettable at £3B a month. The owner, however, explained to me that she found she could get more for it. so she was now asking £76 a month! Driven into domesticity by lack of hotel accommodation, the American woman is also faced with the vent problem. Families of moderate means, therefore, are simply over-crowded. Four people, for instance, will crowd into a flat consisting of two hed-sittingrooms and a kitchenette. Married couples live in what is practically two rooms. The general rule is no service at all. There are expensive service flats, but with the other servants—even coloured women—are hard to get, and their average rate of pay is about a pound a day with their I food. The better-off people have servants in relays. I know a. woman who has- no j fewer than four sen-ants in during the day, each giving her an hour or so. Even so, she gets breakfast and tea herself, and. in default of labour, has even taken to wiring her own electric bells. It is, of course, less difficult to dispense with servants than is the case in England. Central heating is practically universal, and generally speaking, hot water can be had for the turning of a tap. Recently landlords have been putting up renU and cutting down heating on the score of coal scarcity. One or two law case-, however, have actually, done soaic good in keeping them up to their obligations. .Sinks, baths, and washing troivjhs are made of china and earthenware, and fitted with hot and cold water. They are very easily kept clean, and are most .?on\enient for daily use. The small kitchen, with its gas stove and various electrical fittings, is also convenient for use and easy to keep clean. Electricity is so cheap that it is well worth the expense of having an electric iron, a vacuuln cleaner run by electricity, electric toasters, and so n forth. All these things are here more or less a matter of course, and are a set-off against the lack of service.

Again, family life is closely interwoven with restaurant life. Many American women do their cooking for two or three days, and eke out with meals or dishes from a restaurant. You can go for any meal from breakfast upwards, or you can have it sent in, and the food is so good and the cooking so excellent that, but for the expense, it would probably ..become even more of n habit not to have meals at home. • Whiie the food problem in the home is thus comparatively simple, the lack and costliness of domestic; service have also simplified the interior. The fashion now is for' little furniture and few ornaments. The floors are generally parquet and covered only with a few rugs. One of the differences between the American woman and her European sisters is that while she has the appearance of being able to do nothing domestic, she is really very competent. There is no domestic hocus-pocus about her. no virtue in the exchange of recipes and the making of currant wine. Actually she is nearly always a good cook, a good dressmaker, and, at need, a good laundress. Now that expenses have increased so fabulously these qualities come a little more to the front. Uut even so they are notmade shining virtues of; rather arc they matters which have to be done, as have shaving or buttoning one's boots, and with the American aids to human labour they are very weli done.

. Housekeeping is a problem here, but it is not the weighty problem it is in Europe. Everybody is trying to get a servant, but they know that they will fail, and so they do things themselves. There is outside help for a multiplicity of things, such as pressing or mending clothes. Stockings can be darned at the shop. Meals can be telephoned for. In. '-addition, the fine dry climate, makes such an in-and-out life very much more possible than would be the case in our own country. It really amounts to this—anything individual in America is. possible only to millionaires. The moment it is standardised—and all the necessary functions of life are standardised here—it is within the reach of most people and is well and efficiently done.