"BARE COMFORT"

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 229, 15 June 1918, Page 8

"BARE COMFORT"

SECOND DIVISION FIGURES

COMMENT BY WIVES

In a communication addressed to the Minister of Defence and published in yesterday's Dominion the executive of the Second Division League presents figures Iα illustrate how the wife and child of ii soldier would live "on a clear income of A' 2 2s. per week fur the wifewith the child's allowance of 10s. 6d. extra." The bible prepared by the loagtio shows that the wile nntl child would sp'Mid L K 12s. lid. per week on food, clothing, mid household necessities, apart from rent, and tho league stales that. this amount will provide "only the barret .reasonable state of comfort." Yesterday ii Dominion reporter piawl the league's figures before two Second Division wives and invited their comments. "The men who prepared those figures cannot have undorslood what they were talking about," said the first lady. "Why, if a woman with one young child, living rent free, has to spend £2 12s. (id. a vcek to provide 'the barest reasonable state of comfort,' how are ordinary families living nt, the present time? My husband earns about .l'. r > a week, and wo have two children. The rent is £], so there' is X't a week for everything else, including insurance. We four live quite comfortably. Yet this league says that .£2 12s. (id. a week will only just do for mo nud one of the children. That leaves £\ 7*. (id. for my husband and the other child. * ' ".lust look at the figures. The league's woman is to buy 71b. of meat a week for herself and one young child, and is to pay fld. a. lb. for it. Evidently sho is going to buy only the most expensive joints. Her food is going to cost her ■£1 Is. !id. a week. At that rate my family should be spending X 2 15s. Cd. a week' on food, or a bit more, for they say a man costs more to feed than a woman. Clothing fdr herself and the one child is to cost over liis. a week. That nmy not look much, but if I double that to allow for the husband and the other charge, my clothing bill should be £1 10s. a week. And so on. Tho league must have been thinking of the. family with an income of more than ,£'G a week tvhen :t made out those figures. They are not 'bare comfort' figures at all."

The other lady began by expressing her sympathy with the general policy ,of tho league. She Haul that she did not think (he Government should be -afraid of increasing incomes a little while the husbands were at the war. "But I admit tho league lias not undo out an ordinary family budget," she added. "People who have "ordinary incomes—l mean up to £\ 10s. or £b a week—cannot live on, this scale. A woman who had i'2l2s. fid. a week for herself and one young child after the rent was paid would be a good deal more comfortable than the average mother is to-day. I mean comfortable financially, and I do not think that the amount mentioned by the league is too much for a woman whose husband is away fightHg. But the league should have Iff I her to spend the money without their advice."