In 43 of the 57 occupations reported the rate is higher in America, and the average margin for these 43 occupations is $0.0786, while the margin of larger pay for the 14 occupations in which a higher rate is paid in Australia is only $0.0301. If an employer had in his service one person in each occupation quoted in Australia and in the United States, his pay roll would be $2.9585 an hour more in America than in the Commonwealth. The only industry reported where wages are uniformly higher in Australia than in America is brickmaking.

Moreover, in considering the earnings of industrial workers in the two countries, it must be kept in mind that the American workman is employed on an average one hour or over a day more than the Australian in similar occupations except in the building trades; therefore his relative earnings are 12 to 20 per cent higher than the table indicates. In those trades that have an 8-hour day in the United States wages are most markedly above the Australian rate. The difference is also greatest in the most highly skilled occupations. If a comparison of the wages of common laborers could be made, it is possible that the rate of payment on a time basis would prove higher in Australia than in America.

Any comparison of the cost of living in Australia with that in the United States must be defective because of insufficient data as to cost of commodities in the former country and of the relative weight of different commodities in determining total family expenditure. In the United States the average income of 25,440 workingmen's familes was found to be $749.50 per annum, and the average family expenditure for all purposes was $699.24, leaving an average annual surplus of $50.26. Total average savings somewhat exceeded this, as payments upon homes owned, including principal on mortgages, are reckoned part of the current expenditure. Food constitutes the largest single item of expenditure, forming 44.75 per cent of the total. A comparison of the relative cost of articles of food for which verified prices can be given is presented in the following table.

RETAIL PRICES OF FOOD IN AUSTRALIA AND IN THE UNITED STATES.

a By the ton flour costs 1.63 cents a pound in Australia, and by the barrel about 1.93 cents in the United States.

Six of the commodities quoted are dearer in Australia and five are dearer in the United States. But any figures such as these require a multitude of qualifications. The relative importance of different articles varies in the two countries. In both of them fresh meat is the most important single item. The average workingman's family in America consumes 349.7 pounds of fresh beef a year, and this costs him 15.3 per cent of his total expenditure for food. Butter, cheese, and milk, however, if taken together, are relatively more important than fresh meat in his bill of fare. While fresh meat is cheaper in Australia, dairy products cost less in America. Salt meats are cheaper in the United States. Baker's bread is relatively a much more important item in the expenditure of an Australian than of an American workingman, because the housewife is the latter's baker. Some workingmen in Australia estimated their baker's bill as about equal to their grocer's bill. It is probably not far out of the way to say that an average workingman's family in that country consumes 15 to 19 2-pound loaves a week. The average American workingman's family consumes 2.43 such loaves, or less than 5 pounds of baker's bread a week. On the other hand his family uses over 13 pounds of flour and meal weekly. Coffee is the staple drink of the workingman in America, and tea of the workingman in Australia. The former's family consumes 4.6 pounds of coffee for every pound of tea. In both countries the more usual drink is the cheaper. Vegetables are probably cheaper and more extensively used in America than in Australia, though we have the price of potatoes only for purposes of comparison.

No positive conclusion can be arrived at, therefore, as to the relative cost of a family's food in the two countries, but the indication is that, allowing for the different proportions of articles used, the difference in cost is not material either way.

12425-No. 56-05-16

The expenditure in Australia, inasmuch as it includes the cost of living for families of large as well as of small incomes, shows considerable variation from that in the United States, especially in the proportion spent for miscellaneous purposes. The relatively larger value of this item, which includes wages of domestic servants, makes the other items, such as fuel, clothing, rent, etc., less than they would be if only workingmen's expenditure were given in Australia. Climatic conditions account for the larger share of expenditure devoted to such items as fuel, lighting, and rent in America. The most remarkable variation is in the relative amount spent for intoxicating liquors in the two countries, and this item is probably subject to correction.

In the Seven Colonies of Australasia, Mr. Coghlan estimates the average annual per capita expenditure in Australia at $185.05 in 1900, as compared with Mulhall's estimate of $159.66 in the United States; and that in Australia 37 per cent of the per capita expenditure is spent for food and drink, as compared with 25 per cent in America. Deductions from the figures presented in these connections in the book referred to would make the average per capita income in Austraha about $22, as compared with $190 in the United States. All estimates of this sort are largely guesses based on partial evidence, but taking into account in the United States the Negroes and the mountain whides they probably possess a certain validity in as far as they show

that the magnitude of income or expenditure, considering national averages, is relatively greater in Australia than in this country. As far as cursory personal observation can determine the standard of living of city workmen in America and Australia is about the same. But the United States is an agricultural country, with much small thrift and neighborhood investment of local capital, while Australia is chiefly a pastoral and mining country, with its industries still, to some extent, upon a speculative basis, and employing a relatively larger amount of borrowed capital. It is possible that for these reasons there is a more "out West" liberal view of money in some country districts of Australia than in those of the Union. These conditions would react to some extent upon the comparative expenditure in the two countries. One person in four in Australia is a savings-bank depositor, as compared with one person in 12 in the United States, though the average deposits in the former are less than two-fifths what they are in the latter country. However, in most Australian States there are postoffice savings banks, and in all States the Government controls and encourages this form of savings more than does the Government in America. No comparative statistics of home ownership are available, but the number of owner occupiers was estimated by an official at 28 per cent in Victoria, a State, with the possible exception of South Australia, where the general conditions of industry and development would be most favorable to home proprietorship. In the United States 46.5 per cent of the householders own the homes they occupy, a condition due in large part to the predominance of agricultural industries in that country and the turn it gives to accumulation. But the building-society capital of Philadelphia is more per inhabitant than the savings-bank deposits per inhabitant in Australia. It would seem, therefore, that small realty investments are more sought after in the United States. It is evident that the trend of local investment in the two countries is on the whole so different as to prevent any very effec tive comparison, based upon statistics at present available, of the relaative accumulation and form of wealth distribution prevailing among the working people.

A judgment as to the effect of the political labor propaganda upon the industrial condition of Australia, and upon the welfare of the workingmen themselves, would be premature. Neither could it well be formed by a temporary visitor to that country. The effects of socialistic theories and ideals are more profound than their explicit statement might indicate. They react to some degree upon the character of the person holding them, and upon his attitude toward every problem of life. To a certain extent they weaken individual energy and self-reliance, and to that extent subtract from the joy of living. Possibly the fact is due to temporary causes, possibly it may be a condition of which socialistic views are a result and not a cause; but one's

impression is that the working classes of Australia are not as happy as those of America. There is certainly more pessimism among their leaders. A certain humorous hopefulness, a kind of chronic expectation of good luck, that one is hardly conscious of until one misses it, appears to be absent among Australian workers. And yet this is hardly characteristic of the people, with their sunny skies and with their sanguine temperament.

One must remember in comparing conditions in the two countries that practically every part of Australia has nine or ten months summer, with only the ghost of an autumn in between, and that manual labor is really more onerous for a white man than in cooler climes. There is no rest period in the year, no tonic of sharply contrasted seasons. Generally where nature works long hours men want short hours. The essence of the labor movement in Australia is less work, while in the United States it is more wages. These conditions incline men to regard labor as essentially an evil-not consciously and admittedly, but subconsciously and as a fundamental assumption in all their social reasoning. It is not suggested that labor is popularly regarded as a blessing anywhere-but it certainly is not alone the desire to conciliate the "boss" that makes many American workingmen exert themselves well toward the limit of their capacity from sheer restlessness of temperament, desire for action, or a certain pleasure in doing things. Australasian workingmen would consider the wage-earner who boasted of the amount of work he turned out in a day a sort of labor heretic. Such sentiments would soon be silenced in that country by hostile class opinion. Yet without something of the sentiment described the life of the workman must be joyless. He can not derive pleasure in following an occupation that he considers the badge of a "hereditary bondsman"-to quote a trade hall circular. Of course the theory of the iniquity of private employment is not practically and universally accepted, and it has not deprived Australian workmen generally of their pride in their craft and their individual skill; but it has tinged the atmosphere of the labor movement, created discontent with the existing order, and whether or not it is a necessary condition of social progress, it has not as yet made toward the attainment of individual happiness.

In the sense just suggested the spread of socialistic sentiment among the working classes of Australia has not stimulated their industrial morality-to use the term as indicating accepted canons. It does not encourage thrift, frugality, and strenuous industry. Few would admit that work, like virtue, is in a certain sense its own reward. Labor leaders also appeal to a new theory of property right, and to one that disintegrates all old standards of thought and belief upon the subject. The radical and profoundly revolutionary character of these doctrines, whether they are right or wrong, is never fully appreciated from their