COST OF LIVING INDEX. Memorandum by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

there have been decreases in the price of potatoes and fish amounting on food has been about 1.17d. per head net week. The increase in the price of bread and flour per now proposed would cost the consumer about 1.1d. per head per week, making a total of just over 21/4d. To balance this there has been a decline in expenditure on clothing. The evidence quoted in L.P.(43)56 was to the effect that the clothing ration is fully taken up in all sections of the population. On this assumption the decline in clothing prices from 1st August to the 1st March, 1943, was equivalent to a reduction in expenditure of 3.