The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-07-27 00:00:00

THE COST OF LIVING.
(From the Siwtator.)

The panic about prices caused by the sudden and ex-
cessive rim in the price of coals, the incessant recur-
rence of strikes, and a quantity of sensational writing
about both of them, is, we think, is little sharper than
it need be. People with limited incomes seem to be
horror struck to believe that because coal has risen,
and gold is "falling," and labourers are striking, and
the country is very prosperous, therefore there will be
a sudden rise in the price of everything, and tint by
Christmas their incomes may be worth about half what
they were worth last year. The apprehension is not
unnatural, is, indeed, well founded as to the ultimate
course of affairs, but it is inuch exaggerated as to the
nearness of the dreaded result.
The world is much more conservative even as to
prices than timid people imagine. The coal famine
which has so frightened the public is to a great extent
the result of an accident -the sudden increase in the
demand for coal for the iron trade which has cleared off
the stoeks at the pit, and for a moment caused the de-
mand to exceed the supply, thus en Jane., and, indeed,
compelling, the masters to charge new purchasers enor-
mous rates. This cannot, however. last long. There is
DO exhaustion of coal, no diminution in the quantity
procurable, no change beyond a rise of wages in the cost
of production; and as profits are very large—we hear of
collieries dividing 40 per cent —and wages are very
high, supplies must soon be procurable sufficient to
bring down the price. New collieries will be opened
and new labourers take to the trade. Meanwhile
people must buy cheaper coal, mix coke with it, use
tire-balls, allowance their kitchens, and put in force all
those devices by which good housewives eontrive to re-
adjust their incomes to any new demand.
That manufacturers will suffer severely for a time is
pomible, but most private persons waste coal BO much
that with a very little more care, or a permanently
useful expenditure on economic stoves, will enable
them to endure for one year a demand of 40s. a ton
for the best Wallsend. The difference will not exceed
an ordinary increase in the Income-tax, and the great
laws of supply and demand can be trusted more fully
than Mr. Lowe.
As to the increase in other things, it will tend very
much to correct itself. The complaining housewives
forget that while a few things have risen in price a
great many others have as distinctly declined • that
the effect of all this resort to machinery which has
so raised the price of coal is to lower the price of all
manufactured articles. As long as the rim is not too
swift, everything will adjust itself, the man who is
doing anything getting more for his work, even though
he spends more to obtain what he wants. A large
section even of those who possess fixed incomes will
suffer little from the rise, the price of Consols, for
example, being inflated by the abuudance of gold, just
as the price of cotton is. All receivers of wages will
distinctly benefit by the rise in price, and so by-and-by
must that discontented clam the agricultureite ; for
although the price of their corn is fixed by the Russian
harvest, and notby the English demand, the effect of a
fall in gold extends to the whole world, and the price
of their produce corn excepted, must rise with that of
labour and of all other commodities. It is only during
the time of readjustment that serious inconvenience
will be felt, and that can be encountered in most
instances by a little more economy and painstakieg.
This is an era of waste. People tell each other
complainiegly of the small incomes on which their
fathers lived, and entirely forget to describe how little
their fathers wanted, bow they valued their movable
property, how seldom they renewed anything, how
long they made carpets last, how jealous they were of
anything approaching to household waste. One-half
the things which the middle-clam, even the poorer
middle-class, think necessaries are not necessaries
at all, but luxuries conducing very little to the
amenity of their lives. Even now when, as Punch
said, " the one thing dearer than life is living,"
it is astoiii-hiug with bow little money the few
families who keep up the old tradition contrive
to get alts on The clergy, for instance, who of all
classes will 'feel the change most severely, their in-
cones beiug dependent on the price of corn, which of
all prises will rise inset slowly, have for 30 years set an
exainple of good siomeetic management which the
whole middle-class would have done well to follow,
and will follow if prices press on them so hard. Life
in those quiet vicarages, supported on say 280 a
quarter, is neither uncivilized nor gloomy nor dis-
tasteful, is often very much more pleasant than
life in houses maintained on three times the money,
If a rise of prices were to force us all bads towards the
old frugality and reluctance to spend, it would do us
all good; but the rise will, in fact, be too gradual, and
counteracted by too many influences, such BS the in-
crease of business and profit, and communication with
new countries, to affect in any perceptible way the
national habits. The rise we shouid chiefly dread
Is the one which has oceurred so extehsively on the
Continent, a rise in house-rent, which in many
capitals has tripled; but there in as yet little
sign of this in England except in districts like lA-
gruel& and the fashionable quarters of very great cities,
where no rim in price matters winch to men flushed
with new prosperity. To the majority id persons the
tendency of rent to rise, wen-i is undoubted,—bricks,
mood, and builders' labour alli hcreasing in price,—is
counteracted by their wil lie . :nem, a willingness,
entirely confined to England, to go away from the
towns, to give up general society in consideration of
other comforts. If a man's rent rims in London he
ve, fee effield, and corrects his outgoings that
way. a sh continue the process up to the joint
at whit • •!. le and health lost in travelling involves
too heavj on his means.