The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1913. THE COST OF LIVING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 84, 13 August 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1913. THE COST OF LIVING.

The most serious factor in the high cost of living is the archaic system of domestic service. The "Lyttelton ITimes" reminds us that the business man has learned that specialisation, organisation and interchange are the secrets of efficiency, but domestic service remains unspecialised, unorganised and self-supplied. A single street contains several hundred homes, each regarded as a unit and containing domestic workers who do not co-operate. | "The waste of labour involved is over J ID pel- cent, of the world's full out-

put," says the "C'alifornian Outlook," and goes on to show that fifty women are doing work for fifty men which could bo done by ten women if specialised, organised and interchanging their products. The waste of plant, kitchen space, cooking apparatus, dishes

/and utensils and fuel is at least !)!) per cent. The waste in purchasing is I lie difference between the cost of a steady supply at wholesale and the entire expense of all retail service and delivery, equal to at least (it) per cent. The Waste in efficiency is the difference between highly specialised professional work and the grade of labour possible to the lowest average urider conditions of overwork, if it is done by the housewife, or of eternal apprenticeship, if done by servants. There is further waste in a degree by disease and mortality attributable to the low standard of food thus purchased and provided, and all these wastes press hardest on the poor. The Americans are seeking the remedy in the formation of housewives' organisations.