CHILD ALLOWANCES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 123, 26 May 1945, Page 6

CHILD ALLOWANCES

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The Dominion Settlement and Population Association is to be commended for its advocacy of child allowances. An essential feature of any scheme for the proyision of such allowances is that it should be universal in application, in other words, that there should be no means test. Regrettable though it may b.e, it is a fact that the more wealthy a community becomes and the higher its standard of living, the more it complains about the cost of parenthood and the more likely it is to decide that children are too expensive a luxui'y. As has been pointed out by Mr. L. J. Cadbury, of the British Population Investigation Committee, the absolute standard of wealth and of living has nothing whatever to do with whether people feel they can afford a family or not. It is the relative standard between the parent and the non-parent that counts, "It seems absurd," he says, "for a man with an income of £1000 a year to declare that he cannot afford to bring up a family of four children. But it is not so absurd is it sounds. What he means is that, compared with his friends who have the same income but no family, he finds he cannot afford the same amenities." So long as this dispax*ity remains—and without universal child allowances it must always remain— neither New Zealand nor any of the many other "white" counti-ies threatened with a decline in population can hope to overcome their problem.—l am, etc.,

POPULATION,