BONUSES FOR MOTHERS

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23944, 11 May 1943, Page 4

BONUSES FOR MOTHERS

AUSTRALIAN DOCTOR’S SUGGESTION PAYMENT FOR EACH BABY SYDNEY, May 10. "Mothers should be paid to have babies—£loo for the first, £2OO for the second, and increasing amounts up to £IOOO for the tenth,” says Squadron Leader B. T. Mayes, Professor of Obstetrics at Sydney University. He is also gynaecological consultant to the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. “A mother is the country’s No. 1 public servant,” he said in a Mothers’ Day interview. "It should not cost a woman a penny to have a baby. If ever a citizen should be reimbursed ior public service it is a woman who supplies the country with its posterity. It now costs the average Australian family from £SO to £7O to have a baby. But a wife should be well paid for doing this great service to her country." Giving a warning that the absorption of women into war industry and auxiliary services would mean a further decline in Australia’s birth rate. Squadron Leader Mayes added that he believed most of these women would be glad to return to the normal hum-drum existence of homes and babies. If they were not, the consequences for themselves personally as well as for their country would be disastrous,