FAMILY ALLOWANCES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLVII, Issue 10826, 22 January 1927, Page 4

FAMILY ALLOWANCES.

Sir, —I bavq just. been reading an article in your paper on the' family allowance. Really, Sir, no right-think-ing person, could term it anything more than a vote-catching proposition. But no doubt it will appeal to the average ninny as ho will consider lie is getting something for nothing. It is very amusing to- my mind to- listen to gentlemen of the Hon. G. J. Anderson's carbine, how he proposes to keep a hen warm by taking a feather out of her wing, and sticking it in her tailor by cutting two feet- off one end of baby’s blanket, and sewing .it-on tlio other, making it longer.. If I remember riglitly, we paid something over eight million in Customs duties in 1925. No doubt, Sir, this is where* Mr Anderson gets the two shillings. It certainly-’ seems a queer act of human kindness, for Mr Anderson to put his liand in father’s pocket, take out two shillings, and give it to mother, to- buy a Jew’sharp for little Willie, a rag doll for Harriet,, or two “bob’s” worth of roasted peanuts for the three* children. No, Sir, it is not a family allowance we want—not in my opinion. For anything Mr Anderson may give us, lie will take off us first. What we do want, Sir, and what our nation 'is badly in need of is someone with vision to guide it, someone who will improve the social conditions under which v'c live, or rather exist. Here, Sir, we have millions of acres of land, the means of life lying idle, hundreds of children receiving charity, and going to bed hungry, and their fathers in many cases carrying their swag, while we import many hundred thousand pounds’ worth of foodstuff, which cor'd be, and should he, produced here by the now idle parents of needy children. Hcj'e, Sir, we have black"mdh as; much as £9Q' fdr three nihiitlis to he allowed to sell 1 oui 1 ’'o'wif fi'uit"fit t’>o corners of our city streets, and flim-h that amount from the children Mr Andersen professes to have as much -sympathy for. Here, again, Sir, is my mother, 59 years of age, unable to work. She gets nothing, while my sister, aged 20, a widow with one baby, quite able to work, gets a pension of thirty shillings a week. Here again. Sir, is a ploughman with a wife and four children. He gets £2- per week for working ten hours a day, while the widow* with the same number of children gets £3 a week for doing nothing more than the ploughman’s wife. J. SUTTON.