CHILD ENDOWMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 33, 9 February 1927, Page 9

CHILD ENDOWMENT

NEW SOUTH WALES SCHEME

ORIGINAL BASIS WHITTLED

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, 4th February.

Of all efforts at socialistic legislation by the Lang Government in New South Wales, ranging from the forty-four-hour week to the newspaper tax, none has. induced more discussion or criticism than the child endowment scheme.

'This /came into ■ beings through; the investigation by the Industrial Commissioner (Mr. A. B. Piddington) into the cost of living, and his determination of the basic wage. His finding that the old basic wage of £4 4s per week should remain unchanged, but that as soon as possible a child endowment scheme at the rate of 6s per week for every child, under the age.of sixteen of a' worker: earning less -than £750; a year should be enacted. That decision aroused severe criticism in trade union circles, which had expected a straightout increase in the basic wage of about 10s per week, and maintained that months must pass before a child endowment scheme could be made effective. Equally warm was the criticism of .employers, .who pointed out that the old basic wage was calculated on the basis of a man, his wife, and two children, whereas-the. now determination, if th.c endowment scheme were passed, would mean that the wage was determined on the basis of a single man or a married worker without children.

Mr. Lang and his Ministry disregarded_ the protests of the employers;. The criticism of the trade unions is allayed by promising to bring in a Child Endowment Bill before March. Consequently during the last five .or six weeks Mr. Lang, as Treasurer," officials of his Department, and a committco of the Labour 'Caucus have been completing plans for child endowment.: This week the scheme emerged from this mill, somewhat emaciated. In the, form that the scheme will be presented to Parliament, the endoWment lias been cut down to the rate of 5s per week to each child under the ago of fourteen, and the workers affected will be those earning £7 a week or less—a considerable difference from the original scheme suggested by Mr. Piddington. The Government really want a more complicated scheme than this, but the Cabinet's "boss," the party caucus, ruled differently.; ■■-:■■.'■

The,.sche'me as it now stands will cost £8,000,000 a year. Of this, £2,000,000 will bo. provided by the State and £6,000,000 by industry; that is, the employers. The State will seek to raise its quota by a new land tax, an increase in stamp and probate duties, and taxes on other sources-not definitely decided. The employers' share will be collected by a levy of 6 per cent, on the wages bills in respect of all State industries and 5J per cent, in regard to all Federal industries. Apart from its participation in the new taxation, industry will therefore be docked an amount which might prove ruinous to it in competition with industry in other States.

But the most unsatisfactory feature of the scheme is that there' will be thousands of small earners, such as bread-line farmers, one-man contract workers, poor clergymen, men who eon; duct a business by themselves which returns them a weekly income of Icfs than £7 per week, who will not benefit by the scheme. This is taken as evidence by opponents of Mr. Lang's Government that the scheme is meant to benefit only those militant unionists who have exerted their extra-Parlia-mentary influence previously on the Government's legislation.