FAMILY NEEDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 June 1938, Page 8

FAMILY NEEDS

WAGES OFTEN INADEQUATE IN BRITAIN ALLOWANCES ADVOCATED BY MR AMERY. MINISTER'S SYMPATHETIC REPLY. (British Official Wireless.) (Recd This Day, 11.3 a.m.) RUGBY, June 24. Discussing the votes for the Ministry, of Labour and the Unemployment Asistance Board, the Rt Hon L. S. Amery drew attention to a statement in the last report of the board that the needs —assessed according to the board s minimum scales —of larger families among workers in the lower-wage grades often exceeded as much as ten shillings weekly the amount brought in by the wage-earner when in employment. Mr Amery said the board's duties were to provide adequately for the minimum needs of a family and to see that its administration did not create an incentive to leave work and take relief. Those duties were frequently irreconcilable. Were they, as a nation, regarding the interests of the growing generation, to decide that the wage system should take some account of the minimum needs of a family, or to be governed entirely by the notion that labour was simply a commodity whose price was settled by haggling in the open market? He suggested that the only solution was to make' some provision for the children of the nation irrespective of the wage earned by the parents. In large families, children were creators of and sufferers from poverty. A very large proportion of the children of the country were underfed and started life with all the odds weighted against them. Population trends reinforced the arguments for a system of family allowance, which would solve a most urgent problem from the viewpoint, not only of unemployment assistance, but of building up the fitness of the nation and doing justice to a'large number of people who, through no fault of their own, were destined to grow up underfed, stunted and unable to play a worthy part in the life of the nationl. Mr Amery’s plea was supported from the Liberal benches and Mr Harold MacMillan (Conservative) and Dr Haden Guest (Labour) spoke of other aspects of the issue. The Minister of Labour (Mr Ernest Brown), replying, said family allowances could be provided, first by direct State grants, secondly by adopting an insurance system to provide extra allowances for families of a certain size, with the assurance that the family would be paid those allowances, whether there was work or not, and thirdly, by means of an industrial arrangement, with the assistance, if necessary, of the Ministry of Labour and Industrial Relations Department. The Minister referred to the progress of the movement for holidays with pay, which he described as remarkable. Since the appointment of a committee on the subject two years ago, a collective agreement covering a million and three-quarter workers had been ratified, which provided for holidays with pay.