VOLUNTARY SAVING 71

Money Wage Rates

Cost of Living

Real Wage Rates

Rough average of

per cent increase

in the wages of

Labour

Modified

According to:

the workers men-

Gazette

Index 2

Labour

Modified

July

tioned below 1

Index

Gazette

Index

1914

100

100

100

100

100

1915

105-110

125

(120)

84-88

87-92

1916

115-120

145

(135)

79-83

85-89

1917

135-140

180

(160)

75-88

84-88

1918

175-180

205

180

85-88

97-100

Thus, the Labour Gazette index of the cost ofliving rose by 25 points a year and the modifiedindex (compiled in 1918) by 20 points a year,with the truth probably lying between the two;and by the end of the war the value of moneywas about halved. As against this, money wagerates rose on the average about 10 points a yearduring the first half of the war and about 30points a year during the second half. The netresult was that the purchasing power of wage-rates during the first three years of the war upto July 1917 ranged about 15 per cent less thanbefore the war. The considerable recovery shownin the last year and a half of the war was madepossible by the relaxation of financial pressuredue to the entry of the United States , but theextent of it is difficult to calculate accurately on

1 Bricklayers, Bricklayers' labourers, Compositors, Railwaymen,Dock labourers, Cotton operatives, Woollen and worsted operatives,Engineering artisans, Engineering labourers, Ship-building platers'time rates, Coal mining, Agriculture England and Wales.

2 The Modified Index is based on the findings of the Sumner Com-mittee in 1918. The chief differences from the official index arise withrespect to clothing, sugar, butter, margarine. The Sumner indexallows for substitution when the pre-war qualities were not obtainableon the market. The official index does not.