FAMILY LIFE ON THE DOLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 21

FAMILY LIFE ON THE DOLE

Three of the women who marched from Coventry to London addressed a meeting at the Essex Hall recently and described the way in which they and their families have to support life on the dole, states the "Manchester Guardian." They and their fellowmarchers spent a long time in the House of Commons, but without much success, it appears, in cases where their members of Parliament were of the "National" parties. All three women stated their case with great moderation, but the cumulative effect was horrible. A Labour M.P. who spoke after them was so much overcome by what he had heard that he could hardly continue his- speech. Mrs. Harley, of Greenock, said she was the wife of an unemployed man who had worked only nine months in the last twelve years, and he was only one of thousands of shipbuilders in Greenock who were in the same position. The- Unemployment Assistance Board allowed 38s a week to herself and her husband and four children of ages ranging from six to twelve. They inhabited a single room, the two parents and three boys all having to occupy the same bed; the daughter, aged twelve, had to live two miles away with her aunt. The room was in a building which had only two lavatories to serve 65 people, and in the same house there was one room which was occupied by twelve people, the ages of the children ranging from five to eighteen. Mrs. Harley described the way in which the weekly 38s was spent. Groceries (tea, sugar, bread, margarine, and one 2Jd tin of condensed milk a week) took 17s and rent 4s. When boots and stockings and other necessaries had been paid for there was a weekly balance of, two shillings and a few odd coppers for meat and other extras, or fourpence a day to be divided among five people. On three days a week they bought half a pound of minced meat and 3Jlb of potatoes; on the other four they bought half a pound of flat sausage. They could not have vegetables every week. She herself had not been able to eat anything solid during the last week of the march from Coventry because she was so unused to the good food-which the marchers received. . She spoke also of the homes which she said had been

broken up by the means test. Young people found themselves unable to save anything towards their marriage, so that they came to resent their own families, left home, broke up a family life, and took away part of its income. Mrs. Holliday, of Chppwell, Tyneside, said her husband was a miner who had been unemployed for the last twelve years. Under the Unemployment Assistance Board they received 36s a week for themselves and two daughters, aged 14 and 11. The girls, both of whom were anaemic, received half a pint of milk from their school. After paying rent of 10s a week and other necessaries they had 15s 9d left for food—flour, potatoes, two tins of condensed milk and a pint of fresh milk on Sundays, minced meat, and a pennyworth of bones once a week for soup—and to pay for the children's clothes. Her eldest daughter had had pneumonia three years ago through insufficient food and clothing, and a health visitor had told she must take something from the table in order to provide long stockings for the child. At that moment the family were having a meal. of mashed potatoes, bread, and tea. They could manage only one blanket on each bed. Yet there were many people in much worse circumstances than themselves. The third marcher was Mrs. Nelson, of Blackburn, a widow, with three children, a son of 17 and two daughters of 20 and 19. All three of them had taken scholarships, and she had struggled to send them to the central school, yet now the two girls were both in domestic service, the boy was working at a wage of 13s a week, and she herself was allowed 15s. Mrs. Nelson spoke of a baby in Blackburn which died of pneumonia without a doctor and in a room without a fire, of another child which could not walk till it was four, and of the misery of watching the Blackburn children as they went to school. Running through her speech was the indignation of the working woman out of work who had woven "miles of cloth," yet had now to do without towels and make sheets out of cheap scraps, the indignation of all the Blackburn women whose pride it had once been that coal was brought to their doors, but who now had to walk with bags to bring home four pennyworth of it.