THESE FAMILY ALLOWANCES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 331, 26 October 1945, Page 10

THESE FAMILY ALLOWANCES

Is One Man’s Benefit Another Man’s Burden? .

HE fact that family allowances have caused so little discussion means perhaps that there is no wide division of opinion about them-at least in principle. Yet little storms have blown up here and there, and most people who travel in buses, trams and trains must have run into them. To discover, if we could, what ordinarily silent people think, we made a few inquiries, and give some of the answers. But we also report two of the arguments in public places. * + * BUS PASSENGERS: . [This is not an accurate report, but as faithful a reproduction from memory as our reporter could give next day.) HEY were together on a bus, two men in their early forties. By their speech one was from the south of England, and one from farther north. One of them had an evening paper in his hand. "Can you understand all this business about family allowances?" he asked. "About what?" "Family allowances. This stuff here, look. Ten shillings a kid whether you need it or not." "Tt’s plain enough, isn’t it?" "But what’s the advantage? They give me £50 and take away £50." "How many children have you?" "Two." "Well, you don’t lose anything. You gain. You lose the tax on £50 and get an allowance of £52 in cash." "T can’t follow it."

"Tt’s simple enough. At present you are not taxed on the first £350 of your income-£200 for yourself, and £50 each for your wife and two children. Next year your exemption will be only £300-£200 for yourself, £100 for your wife; and nothing for the children. But you will get a cash payment of £26 a year for each child, making you at least £45 a year better off." "How will I get it? Queue up at a post office, I suppose." "IT don’t know anything about that, and don’t care. Standing in a queue won’t worry me." "I would sooner have it the other way -see wages falling instead of rising." "The "way you used to be in England?" "T was a damn sight better off then than I am now. My wages’ were half what I-now get"but went three times | as: far." "Th what?" z "In general comfort-standard of living." ° ,

"Rot! Our standard of living was never as high in England as it is here." "Mine was. It was higher." "Then somebody else was paying for it-the miners or the dockers or the railway men. You weren't. "I don’t know about that, but I know how I lived." "What about other people?" "They lived well: too," "Working men?" "Yes, working men. Any number of them. They had good stone cottages and sat down to good square meals." "Is that why they voted Labour the other day?" "I don’t/know why they voted Labour, but iit was not neaerees they were hungry." "Or worried about the rent?" "No," "Or unemployment?" "No." "Or the education of’ their children?" "No." ~"Or sickness and old‘age?"

"No." "They were well fed, well housed, well provided for in every way, but just wanted a change?" "You ought to stand for Parliament." "Well, in the meantime I am going to stand for this young mother who needs this seat more than I do." IN A DINING ROOM: {The other discussion was shorter and .. sharper. It happened in a public dining toom. The speakers were women, apparently between 30 and 40.] "HAVE you read the paper this morning, Miss Walker?" "No, what’s in it?" "How much you have to pay to keep me in my old age." i "And your children in the meantime?" , "Yes, my children too... It’s a great idea." 4 ‘ "e

"It’s q crazy idea! Don’t these fools know that they will be worse off in the end?" ‘ " "What fools? The people who have children?" "The people who are getting excited about this preposterous family allowance." "They won’t be worse off. They'll be better off. It’s you who will be worse © paying for their follies." 2 "You think that’s smart, I suppose?" "Not at all. I think it’s just." "Just to pay for other people’s childs ren?" ' ite , "Certainly, if you have none of your own." "You're mad!" — Gis "No, just glad-delighted that the burdens of civilisation are to be more fairly divided." ~

SCHOOL-TEACHER (father of 2 children) : "ILL be better off under the new regime and I should be thankful for it, but my immediate reaction to the scheme was one of irritation," said @ school-teacher, father of two children. "Why must life be so mathematically complicated? I get a fixed annual salary. Before I see any of it, percentages are whacked ‘off for social security purposes. Income tax has become such a massive item that one must salt away @ fraction of one’s salary every pay-day. I have to remember to pay quarterly dues -thank offerings to the god of Employ-ment-I’m supposed to be regular in my war-savings investments. Insurance -premiums; radio licences, dog taxes and the rest: stalk me down the years. I’m not a maths. master, but.in the. struggle. for existence to-day: you have to be a, Tybalt and fight by the book of arithmetic.. Do you wonder that I long -for an. income from which nothing would be taken away -and nothing added? If you asked me what amount I would be bringing into ‘the home next month I couldn’t tell you without recourse to pencil, paper, and what I still remember of the multiplica-tion-table."

BUTCHER (2 children aged 8 and 14): "TF an increase in population is what they’re after, family benefits alone won't do it. What they want to do first is to remove the threat of war. " How many women want to go on having children just to feed them to war? Every mother’s son, you might say, has been through this war. And you count up in the last 900 years and you'll see we’ve had between 400 and 500 years of warthat’s a big proportion. But of course

these benefits are only just and fair and they’re going to be a help in many cases. But who’s going to pay for them, where is the money coming from, that’s what I'd like to know." MAORI RETURNED SOLDIER (brewery worker, 3 children, one under 16): "7 THINK these allowances are on the right lines. We’ve got to build up our population if we’re to avoid wars in the future. Nations that have race suicide are always the ones that go under in history and the nation with the big population is safe. If the British Empire builds up a strong population it won’t be worth any other nation’s time taking it on and so there won’t be any more wars. I’m 49 and I’ve spent nine years of my life at war, four in the last war and five in this and my eldest boy is still in Egypt. Things have been in a bad mess, but I think they’re clearing up and I think this is a step in the right direction. Personally I think a man would be better off without any overtime, working a 40-hour week and drawing his regular wages with the family benefits due to him; then he’d know where he stood — and also he wouldn’t have to be yawning on the job | the way we are these days." FARMER: "\/ HERE are we going to get the money to pay for all these social benefits? The only source of wealth in New Zealand is the grass in the fields that feeds the sheep and cattle, along with a few.other things such as goldmines and timber. Universal benefits will start, we are told, on the first of Aprilwery appropriate. It’s all too idealistic and it will simply mean that we will be taking in each other’s washing." — COMMUNIST: "TT’S a vote-catching stunt. We have heard a lot of talk about a new social order, but so far, it is only talk. Will somebody tell us how we are to achieve it? New Zealand is not self-supporting, she has no heavy industries, and she must import all heavy machinery. How, then, can it be said that we are in a position to go iti for these grand schemes? A lot of people will be pleased; some won't. I:could talk to you for an hour about this, but what’s the use? There is a. faint glimmering of an approach to Socialism, but it is so faint that: I am not very ‘much heartened by it." "MARRIED WOMAN (no children): "THE family benefits scheme should be commended by every woman. Personally I will not benefit unless my husband ‘and I adopt a child-which we have been thinking of doing for some time. Now we shall probably make a move. The plan strikes me as being a step towards true Socialism. After what New Zealand, with the rest of the world, has gone through in the last five years, it is excellent to see a move towards assisting the production and nurturing of human life." _BARMAN: "PERSONALLY I reckon it’s the ». greatest thing the Government has done. If people get married and both go .to work and they are too darned mean "to have a kid, then they should pay for the others. That’s what I think about it." --