FAMILY ALLOWANCES
Ste,—In your " News of the Week " under the heading " Compulsory Arbitration on Wages " attention is drawn to the difficulty of deciding "to what extent the workers are entitled to a rise in wages corre- sponding to the increased cost of living."
By one means or another private consumption must in present circumstances be cut down, but at the same time the health of the People must not suffer. Consequently expenditure on non-essentials must be severely reduced. But such a reduction presupposes the existence of a margin over and above the bare essentials of life. Broadly speaking the people of this country live not as individuals but in families, and the extent or existence of such a margin depends upon the circumstances of the family, a fact of which an all-round increase in wages takes no account. Family Allowances have long been advocated in normal times ; now surely there is even greater need for some such system as being the f,-,trest and, from the point of view of the country's health, the most beneficial way of dealing with the difficulty arising from the increa,ed cost of living. It should be a national scheme, but, in the absence of direct Government action employers could be encouraged, when faced with the problem of wage adjustment, to deal with the question by some form of Family Allowance Scheme.—Yours truly, J.- Q. MONTGOMERY. Claremont, Green Lane, Northwood, Middlesex
Previous page
