183.
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1939 pricco. A rough idea of quantities can be secured from the data in the Report by dividing average expenditure on cach item by the average price as calculated. When this is done in regard to the food- index, for example, the increase in cost of the quantities so represented, over their cost in 1939, is found to represent an Index Figure of about 600 for food prices. But this rough and ready method has obvious drawbacks, and a more direct inquiry into quantities purchased on the average each month would provide a more satisfactory check."
Nevertheless the Statistical Officer's surveys within the limitations we have suggested are the only scientific consideration of the problem made since the University's attempt and the Commission has been grateful for the guidance derived from them.
Evidence from Budgets.
184.
Meantime the Commission received a very large number of budgets from men in all salary ranges in the Government Service. By close study, comparison and examination of the people who had submitted them wc. were able to gain a good general impression of how people are living and of the difficulties of nearly all classes of Government servants except skilled and unskilled labourers, who, it is commonly agreed, are living better now than before the war. The men in the professional and administrative grades generally manage to avoid falling into debt, which is not the case among the people whose pay ranges between about $200 and 8800 a month. Our cxamination of a large number of witnesses convinced us that men were drawing on their savings, had used up the greater part of such pay as they may have received for the war years, wore driven to all manner of evening and sparetime work in order from month to month to meet essential cxpenditure. Overwork, the worry of debt or of vanishing resources have unquestionably had a serious influence on the officiency of these men, have driven many good men to sock the butter torms offered in private employ, have created unrest and have tried ihe loyalty of good servants of the Government. The men on the higher salary ranges have on the whole accepted cheerfully standards of living more austere than are reasonable in the geographical and climatic conditions of the Colony. A few of the budgets that we have examined show that among the better paid, small savings can be made, but generally a man's salary appears entirely
There is a to go to mcet essential expenditure.
natural anxiety among senior men who find it impossible to supplement by savings, pensions which will become subject to United Kingdom income tax.
Method Chosen.
185.
Using the patterns of expenditure rovcaled by the Statistical Officer's surveys and extracted from the budgets, wo ourselves invited
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