§ 5. Mr. GILBERTasked the President of the Board of Trade what percentage above pre-War figures the present cost of living is in Germany, France, Belgium and Italy: and if the figures are at all comparable with the cost of living in this country?
§ The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Montague Barlow)I have been asked to reply. As the answer includes a number of detailed figures, I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
§ Following is the answer:
§ According to the most recent official index numbers published, the percentages by which the cost of living has risen above the pre-War level are as follows:
| Germany | 22,000 |
| France (Paris) | 202 |
| Belgium | 276 |
| Italy | 344 and 404 (Rome and Milan respectively). |
§ In other words, the cost of maintaining a given pre-War working-class standard of living has risen:
| In Germany to | 221 times |
| In Paris to about | 3 times |
| In Belgium to about | 3¾ times |
| In Rome to about | 4½ times |
| In Milan to about | 5 times |
§ what it was in 1914.
§ In the case of France, the figure relates to the 2nd quarter of 1922. For the other countries it relates to the month of October.
§ Some reserve must be used in drawing any general conclusions from a comparison between these figures and the corresponding figure for this country, since neither the nature and scope of the primary data nor the methods used in combining them in an index-number, are absolutely identical in any two countries.
§ 6. Mr. GILBERTasked the President of the Board of Trade what the present standard of cost of living is above pre-War in Great Britain: if the last ascertained figures show an increase or decrease; and, if so, what percentage?
§ Sir M. BARLOWI have been asked to reply. At 1st November, the cost of maintaining unchanged the pre-War standard of living of working-class families, as indicated by the statistics prepared by the Ministry of Labour, averaged approximately 80 per cent, above the level of July, 1914. The figure for the previous month was 78.