ON THE POVERTY LINE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15603, 5 November 1912, Page 4

ON THE POVERTY LINE.

Mr J. A. Fkostick, of Christchurch, has, in an interview upon his return from a lengthy tour abroad, furnished some suggestive impressions upon the industrial lifo of tho Old Country. Opinions on such a subject are frequently interesting, and their source on this occasion guarantees thorn to havo been shrewdly formed. In one observation which Mr Frosticl; makes wo find crystallised in a way that catches attention what may bo described as tho reverse or unfortunate aspect of liritish industrial progress and prosperity. " It is an indisputable fact," ho says, " that the average worker cannot, even under the favourable conditions of a sound constitution and constant employment, do more than maintain a reasonable standard of physical efficiency, and it is very doubtful if the average worker e;m bring into his home as much energy in food as is taken out in industry." The conditions under which the great mass of tho industrial classes live in the United Kingdom have been examined from n good many different points of view, all pointing unfortunately to the same conclusion—tho simple fact that industrial prosperity has the accompaniment of poverty and a wretched standard of living among a huge army of the workers. Such a state of things is not peculiar to tho United Kingdom, and is doubtless niore accentuated in some parts of the Continent, but its existence i& none the less deplorable. An interesting sidelight on llio lives of tho poor in Britain is cast by Mr Chiozzu Money, M.P., well known as an indefatigable reasor.er from statistics, who in an article in tho Daily News has made the amount of household furniture the working pcoplo jksjoss the measure of their worldly well-being. Mr Chiozza Money takes as a starting-point the fact that the forty-five- million people in the United Kingdom spend less than ten million pounds a year upon furniture. This means that the consumption of furniture amongst them is less thnn 4s 2d per head per annum, and less than a guinea per family of five persons. He argues very reasonably that wooden furniture, upholstered or not, is an essential part of the comforts of the home, and especially of homes as they have to bo tolerated by the great majority of people, in houses in which cvciy means of comfort is scamped. In the circumstances it is not surprising that the inquirer should bo struck by the mean proportions, as indicated by the value of its output and the number of employee*! it absorbs, of a trade which the demands, from the point of view of comfort, of forty-live million ]>eoplc should render groat and magnificent. Tho only conclusion possiblo is that among far too largo a proportion of theso people there is a quite inadequate consumption oi tho chief materials of home comfort. And the fact of the matter, Mr Chiozza Money assures us, is that tho furniture possessed by tho jroor of tho United Kingdom is almost negligible in value when taken as a whole. No doubt, as he suggests, Hie observer who witnesses the removal from one rented house to another of a working-class family can see very easily for himself how povertystricken are the materials of its comfort. We sec the position in its really appalling light when Mr Chiozza Money asks how the average family is to purchase furniture. "Think," ho writes, "of the Rowntree poverty lino of 21s Bd a week, which was formed when food prices wero lower than they are now. At 21s 8d a week for live persons it could only allow lOd a week for lighting, furniture, crockery, soap, and all the other minor domestic materials. At least fifteen million persons aro living either below or just about such a line of poverty as this." Hut whether measured in terms of furniture and upholstery, as representing comfort, or in terms of commodities more urgently required to keep body and soul together, the circumstances of the poor in Great Britain, as well as in other countries, present a problem tho magnitude of which particularly shocks those whose perception of it has not been blunted by long familiarity.