FOOD AND CLOTHING

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 231, 18 June 1918, Page 6

FOOD AND CLOTHING

Sir.—l was pleased to notice in to-day's Dominion where the ■ Second Division League show how M 12s. Gd. allowances to a wife and child of eight years could he expended whilst her liusixind is ill camp. Surely, the league does not expect one to believe that they are in earnest when they say that n woman's clothing bill would run into ,£29 12s. Gd. for a year and the child's JC9 18s. Without any inconvenience, the first item could be reduced to at least JE2O, and the latter item to jC'7. As for the "food" item, imagine a woman and a boy eating ss. 3d. worth of'meat and five large loaves of bread a week (amongst other articles). Simply absurd, 1 say. I have a wife and four children, the oldest fourteen years, and our meat bill is is. Bd. a week on an average, and tho bread bill is. only four and n half loaves to five and a half •leaves per week. The clothing items ore also ridiculous. At n time such as this we ought to practise economy. I admire the stand Sir James Allen is taking in this mattor. It certainly 6hows he has u good deal of backbone. I have no desire to enter into a newspaper controversy on this matter, but I felt that an answer was necessary to such ridiculously extravagant items as. appear in , your paper from the Second Division League—l am, ete., ' ' LEST WE FORGET.