Excluding commodities for which comparative prices could not be secured, the English workingman who moved to Belgium would find his budget increased by 2 per cent, or if coal were excluded, slightly decreased. Conversely, a Belgian workingman moving to England would find his cost of living increased by about 2 per cent, or if coal were excluded, increased by slightly over 5 per cent.

An English family moving to the United States and maintaining its regular standard of living, would find its budgetary expenses increased by 38 per cent. Conversely, an American family would pay 20 per cent less for its accustomed dietary if it moved to England than it is now paying in the United States. These comparisons between the cost of living in England and the United States relate to the year 1909, a special investigation being made into English prices in February, 1909, to provide a budgetary basis comparable with that of the United States.

Combining these various comparisons, and bringing them to a common basis, the following are the results. An English family which was transferred in turn to the respective countries named below and maintained its normal standard of living, would find its expenditures for food and fuel to stand in the following relations to its expenditures in England, the latter being taken as par, or 100 per cent. :

From this it will be seen that the cost of living in the United States, compared with that of France, is in the ratio of 138 to 118, or 117.8 per cent - that is, it is 17.8 per cent higher than in France. Similarly, the cost of living in the United States is

17.8 per cent higher than in Germany,

35.3 per cent higher than in Belgium, and

38.0 per cent higher than in the United Kingdom.

This is not a complete statement of the situation, inasmuch as it takes into account only those articles, and in only those proportions, used by the British workingman in his dietary. His standard would doubtless rise in moving to the United States; but for the same standard of living, the foregoing comparisons hold.

Budgets. The Board of Trade, in its investigations, made a study of budgets of workingmen's families in the five countries studied. Below will be found a brief resume, presented on a per capita basis:

Expenditures Fob Food Per Capita.

Per week.         Per year.

United States...................... $1.78              $92.33

France ........................... 1.20               62.40

Germany ............................................. 98               50.96

United Kingdom .................................. 98               50.85

Belgium...........................94               49.12

Thus the actual expenditure of the average American workingman for food in the northern part of the United States is seen to be greater than that of the average workingman in France by 48.0 per cent; greater than that of the workingman in Germany by 81.2 per cent.; greater than that of the workingman in England and Wales by 81.6 per cent.; and greater than the amount spent by the workingman of Belgium by 88.0 per cent.

The United States and England and Wales [page 68]. The English-American comparison of the cost of living, as ascertained by the British Board of Trade in 1909, rests on returns secured from but three trades - the building, the engineering, and the printing trades. . . .

On the average the wages of the American workman were higher than those of the English by 130 per cent.; his hours of work per week were fewer by 4 per cent; his payments for rent for the same kind and amount of house accommodation were higher by 107 per cent.; the retail prices of his food, weighted according to the consumption shown in the British budgets were, as has earlier been shown, higher by 38 per cent. Put more briefly, it is found that while the wages of the American workman are the higher by 130 per cent., his expenditures for food and rent combined, on the British standard of living, are the higher by only 52 per cent. A much greater margin over the expenditures for food and rent is, therefore, available in the United States than in England and Wales. This margin, says the report of the Board of Trade, "makes possible a command of the necessaries and conveniences of life that is both nominally and really greater than that enjoyed by the corresponding class in this country (England)."