As our regular readers know, issues of BC Studies normally include several articles on a variety of topics. In a departure from this pattern this issue is devoted largely to a single article, one we believe is an unusually significant contribution to Canadian economic and social history. The "standard of living" debate has been a major controversy in British historiography for more, than two decades, one side led by R. M. Hartwell arguing that industrialization brought an increase in the

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... d of living of British workers, the other, whose most notable spokesman is E. J. Hobs-bawm, contending that it did not. Only recently and in a quite different economic and social context has a similar discussion begun among Canadian historians and economists. We know a good deal about the rising fortunes of entrepreneurs and financiers such as