FAMILY ALLOWANCES OF SOLDIERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 19 October 1942, Page 4

FAMILY ALLOWANCES OF SOLDIERS

THE War Cabinet's decision to pay I allowances lor all children under 16 of those serving in the Army removes much of the discrimination now existing against the family man in our schedule of pay and allowances. Since the establishment of a ballot system which calls men according to age irrespective of domesi tic responsibility there has been no sound reason for limiting to live the number of children on which the daily allowance of Is Cd will be paid, ! though there has been and still is 1 very good reason why fathers of j large families should not be taken I into the uniformed Services at all. j But, once having been accepted, it i is only throwing an unwarranted I burden on the mother and penalising the children to ask a family of ten to manage on the same pay as a family of five. The anomaly is to be corrected as from Ist November. This principle of family allowances is one which the Services recognise and a wise State would incorporate the same principle into its peacetime wages and salary system. As the war goes on, and more and more 1 men with a wife and several child- ' ren are called into the army on pri- . vates’ pay, the domestic exchequer

may shrink to an extent which in these days of high living costs can be embarrassing. To take the breadwinner out of the home and send him to camp is a wrench which often leaves domestic scars but the burden of war should not be allowed to fall disproportionately on the wife and family of the serving soldier or else a very short-sighted

policy is being adopted towards the rising generation. The impact of war on this section of the community was being overlooked when attention was drawn to it in Parliament. The Government should consider whether the present child allowance is sufficient in all cases. To increase it if it is not would be a wise use of war funds, i The money would not be purchas- ■ ing arms and equipment but it would - be a contribution towards proteeti ing the welfare of mothers and : children, who form a very import- ■ ant part of the national fabric- In : some cases the wife and children may be better off financially because , the husband is in the army; in others the pinch of money shortage may be felt at home because father’s earnings fall far short of what they : did in civil life and the mother may . be forced to neglect her children to go out to work in order to make up ; the leeway. It is difficult for any : one scale of allowances to remove ' all the inequalities that arise from . the family man being taken from civilian life to be a soldier.