I shall be surprised if Mr. Seebohm Rowntree's new Poverty
and Progress, does not make history. His Poverty: Study of Town Life, published in 1899, did. A new study the same city, York, forty years later, provides an invalua basis for an assessment of the rise or fall in standards of liv. in the course of four decades. One or two of Mr. Rowntret conclusions were quoted by him at a lunch given in his hon this week. He takes as the minimum income consistent 1% decent living 43s. 6d., exclusive of rent, and finds that in Y 31 per cent, of the population is failing to reach that stand and 14 per cent. just succeeding ; the remaining 55 per ce is well above. All existing poverty, in Mr. Rowntree's view is curable, primarily through the institution of family allo ances. On one interesting question—" sample surveys," Le investigations based on the study of every tenth or twenue family or case—the book should throw important light, f Mr. Rowntree, having studied some 36,000 households (if remember rightly), has then shown how far his statistical resul would have differed if he had based them on examination only every tenth, twentieth, Ste., case. This is a really impor matter. It is never quite clear what weight should be attach to inquests like the Gallup Survey. V.
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