CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
SIR,—In your "News of the Week " in the December zoth issue of The Spectator reference is made to the Government scheme for com- pensation in respect of war injury. It will be observed that in this scheme, as outlined by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons on December t8th, the Government pursues the policy of sex differentiation. Since apparently all persons whether gain- fully employed or not, irrespective of their means or resources, are to benefit, the injustice of this differentiation seems even more glaring than usual and falls particularly hard on the woman gain- fully employed on a low rate of pay.
Surely all of good will and a fair mind will agree that in this war the hazards are shared by men and women equally and that therefore compensation for war injury should also be equal. The justice of this is obvious when it is realised that a man may (a) be married, but have no dependants; (b) possess a wife with an income earned or unearned or both; (c) be unmarried, with or without dependants; (d) be possessed of a considerable private income as well as one earned. Conversely, a woman may be similarly placed. The principle of " the rate for the job " has been conceded in a number of industries, and in the guinea billeting fee for the Civil Servant the Government has admitted that it costs a woman as much as a man to exist. It will be appreciated that rates and taxes are levied irrespec- tive of sex; that the cost of rent, gas, electricity, water, postage, is the same for women as for men, and that there is no sex differentiation towards the purchaser of food, coal, cleaning materials or railway tickets.
It is common to find tributes in the Press to the contribution women are making to the war effort. In doing their duty, however, women are only fulfilling, as citizens, their obligation to the State, in common with their menfolk. In return they want a just reward for services rendered; to quote Mr. Churchill, they want " deeds not words." Cannot the Government be prevailed upon to dispense with sex differentiation in this otherwise welcome measure and to legislate for the citizen as such, discriminating only between those with or without dependants?—Your faithfully, .ro Salisbury Road, Wimbledon.
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