THE PRESENT POSITION IN REGARD TO THE MAKE-UP OF THE OFFICIAL COST-OF-LIVING INDEX. Memorandum by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

the Chancellor of the Exchequer to arrange for a review be undertaken by the Treasury, in consultation with the to Ministry of Labour and National Service and the Economic Section of the War Cabinet Secretariat, of the present position in regard to the make-up of the cost-of-living index. 2. Mr. Rowntree's enquiry was undertaken with the object of testing the accuracy of the official cost-of-living index.* The results of the enquiry were set out in a memorandum, by Mr. Rowntree to the Minister of Labour and National sent Service in October 1943, in which the conclusion was reached that the rise in the cost of living between September 1939 and October 1943, for a family consisting of an unskilled labourer with a wife and three dependent children, was approximately 37 per cent.