The great fall of prices, due to cheapening of production and of transport during the last twenty years, benefits the poor far less than the rich.

For, while the prices of most comforts and luxuries have fallen very greatly, the same is not true of most necessaries.

The gain to the workers is chiefly confined to food prices, which have fallen some 40 per cent since 1880.

Taking the retail prices of foods consumed by London working-class families we find that since 1880 the price of flour has fallen about 60 per cent., bread falling a little more than half that amount; the prices of beef and mutton have fallen nearly to the same extent as flour, though bacon stands in 1903 just about where it stood in 1880.

Sugar exhibits a deep drop until 1898, rising afterwards in consequence of the war tax and the Sugar Convention; tea shows a not considerable drop.