24 DECEMBER 1904, Page 2

only things in which money does not go further than

it did are rent and fuel and lighting. Here, however, it must be remembered that the housing accommodation is, as a whole, better in quality than twenty years ago. Very important also are the workmen's budgets drawn up by Mr. Llewellyn Smith. The average wages of the poorest class who have sent in returns are 21s. 41jd. Out of this wage the average weekly expenditure on food is 14s. 44c1. Yet we are told that it is absurd to say that the poor will suffer because their food will cost them more under Mr. Chamberlain's policy, since this will be more than made up to them by savings in other expenditure. This one fact is enough to blow the whole Chamberlain policy to atoms. And so we believe it will when the appeal to the people is made.