FAMILY ALLOWANCES
Sta,—The Government scheme for family allowances which is shortly to be embodied in legislation has been widely and rightly welcomed. But there-are certain weaknesses in the scheme as proposed in the White Paper which we very much hope may be put right when the Bill itself comes before Parliament.
In the first place, the proposed allowance of 5s. per week starting with the second child is pitifully small, especially in view of the fact that the Government now states that income-tax will be charged on it, and that it is at present only supplemented by school dinners in the case of little more than one-third of the children. Its Inadequacy is perhaps most marked, however, in the case of those parents who are not earning wages but are on benefit, pension or sick pay, many of whom have no other resources. It should be remembered also that the Beveridge Proposal itself of 8s. only covered subsistence costs at a time when Prices were lower than now, and also made no allowance for the payment of rent.
The second great weakness is the proposal in the White Paper that allowances should be made payable to the father (though with his consent the mother may actually cash the money order). We ask that this should be made payable to her by right for the following reasons.
Payment to the mother will help to raise the status of motherhood and to make women feel that to produce future citizens is a good or better thing than to produce goods or services for which she now does receive wages. Further, there is less chance of the money being mis-spent if it has to pass through only one pair of hands, and the chance that a selfish father would reduce the amount he gives for housekeeping money if the payment is made to the wife. In France and Belgium, where family allowances have been paid by employers for over zo years, payment has always been made to the mother—as it is also in Australia and New Zealand and in nearly every other country which has adopted family allowances at all. It would be particularly unfortunate if this country were to take so reactionary a step.
It seems to us important to draw attention to this point at present even if it seems small in relation to world-shaking events, since once payment to the father has become his established right it would be extremely difficult to withdraw it.
We should be most grateful therefore for the help of your readers in drawing the attention of their members of Parliament to the above 19 Wellgarth Road, London, N.W. rr.
Previous page
