The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-08-10
Made 39,042 Widows, S3,3S9
Orphans in England Alone.
LIVING COST UP So Per CENT
Compared With Like Increase
in Germany, 100 Per Cent.
Nearly Two Million Women
Work In Mems Places.
BY ED l.. KEEN.


London, Aug. 10.-The classes are
profiting by it,
This statement applies. of course,
not only when the subject is consider
ed from the purely financial angle. 1t
would be a hopeless task to measure
the toll of blood and tears that both
paid British aristocracy and British
proletariat have both contributed
generously of their young manhood,
and doubtless on this second ami
versary of the war there are proper
tionately as many broken homes
among the wage-earners as among the
nobility. The war so far has made in
Great Britain 39,042 widows and de-
prived $3.50 children of their faith
ers. The Jutland naval battle alone
added 1850 widows to the roll
In the material things of life never
in England's history have the rich
been poorer, OF the poor richer than
today. Under the new sliding scale
Of income duties. devised to help pay
the nations war bill of $25,000.000
day, the capitalist whose yearly in
come is 100000, turns nearly, 40 per
cent of it into the treasury, whereas
the thousand dollar wage-earner is
let off with 6 per cent. Before the
war the 100000 man was making
present thousand dollar laborer was
earning only $500 or $500.
+ Rich Are Hard Hit.
With the exception of those directly
interested in the munitions industry,
the revenue of England's wealthiest
families generally have been material
ly impaired, even before McKenna's
tax collector comes round. The war
reduced their rentals and business;
also very periodically they have trans
ferred large well paying investments
into smaller paying government secur-
tiles.
On the other hand, the manual la
borer and his family are prospecting
as they never could have hoped to in
peace time, even though he has gone
to the war; for in that event the
chances are that his wife and his
daughters and his sunder-agev sons are
working in munitions factories or else
where at wages he himself would have
been glad to get in other days.
The war has temporarily remedied
two of England's greatest social evils,
unemployment and pauperism. The
other evening the writer strolling
down Fleet street and the Strand and
returning to the United Press office
by way of the Embankment, encoun-
tered only two beggars-both old men
and blind. Two years ago he would
most of them able-bodied men eager
to work.
Wages Much Higher.
A good deal has been said about the
increased most of living here as a re-
suit of the war. Recent figures fl ON
the Board of Trade Gazette place
| the average advance in the price of
foodstuffs in the last two years at SO
| per cent, including the increased
| dl1fies on tea and sugar aS cOr,1 ma red
with an estimated similar increase in
| Germany of 120 per cent. This stead
| lily diminishing purchasing power of
the pound sterling has been more than
compensated by the higher wages and
| increased opportunities for steady en-
ployment for men and women.
A visit to one of London's great de-
partment stores any afternoon would
convince even a casual investigator
that the standard of living among the
working classes has improved. The
smaller customers that pay cash have
Increased in numbers, especially in the
last year; form big credit accounts
have dwindled. Particularly in NUM-
tion-making districts have tradesmen
been profiting. Wage earning fam
lies who previously had scarcely
enough to keep the wolf at bay now
buy expensive wearing apparel, jew
elry, etc, in such quantities that the
national war savings committee is
frantically flooding the country with
posters and pamphlets and independ-
ent organizations are sending out lee
turers beseeching the people to work
hard, spend little and save much" for
postwar days.
Middleman Gets Big Slice.
There are scaiawags in England to-
day just as there are in Germany:
Srasping employers, extortionate mid
dlernen, INSCRIPTIONS retailers, taking
| 1T,
| situation. Somewhere between the
farmer and the housewife the price OF