SUBSIDY TO FAMILIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18413, 20 May 1920, Page 4

SUBSIDY TO FAMILIES.

The proposal of Mr J. J. G. M Giir, Minister of Public Health and Alotherliood in the. newly-formed Labour Cabinet of New South A\ ales, to endow

all children in excess of two in a family at the rate of 7s 6d a week each, is one which will doubtless occasion a great deal of controversy. It is a product, of course, of the phenomenal conditions of the post-war world, conditions which have led to . tho abandonment of many long-cherished economic theories and to the welcoming of many expedients which in the days before the war would have been opposed by the whole weight of scientific political opinion. Tho fundamental objection to Mr M’Girr’s proposal is the practical one that it will add to taxation, and that the influence

of the added taxation on prices may Ire

expected eventually to counteract to some degree the benefit conferred on parents of large families by the endowment-. Taxation is borne, in the I last analysis, by the wage-earners, and we have had practical experience in this country of the effect of taxation on prices. If Air Al’Girr’s scheme, if put

into effect, is. going to precipitate an •'* increase in the cost of living which will raise the cost of maintaining a child by 7s 6d a week or more, then it must be ruled out of court on grounds of pure expediency. Assuming lor the moment that no such risk is to be experienced, the question arises as to the extent to which the State may safely carry paternalism of this fjart. The interest of the State in

potential citizens has been recognised in Australia by the provision of a baby bonus. Is the State justified in taxing the whole community in order to assist parents of large families to carry out their responsibilities to their offspring? The question is one which cannot safely be answeted dogmatically, since while the State, holding supreme power, has a justifiable right to take any • steps which may be considered advisable to conserve tlie interests of all its citizens, it is still a moot point as to how far it may in justice penalise one section to benefit another. In one direction the proposed endowment of children offers a way out of one cf the knotty problems -nrinected with the fixing of a basic wage. Arbitration Courts and other wagefixing tribunals in these clays have to assess the cost of a reasonable standard of living for an average-sized family, and the average is generally assumed to ho five—man, wife and threo children. -The wage assessed on this basis has to bo paid to all adult employees, even single men, because to differenI

tiate might bo calculated to drive married men out of employment. Hence it is that there is coming about a gradual divorce between the value of services rendered and the remuneration paid, since the primary question in wago fixing is the cost of reasonable living for a family of four or five, and not -the intrinsic value of services rendered. Economically, from the standpoint of production, this is bad. With the principle of State aid to the larger families admitted, Wage-fixing tribunals would be able to pay more attention to assessing the value of services/ since they would not bo burdened with the task of providing for the case of the hypothetical average family. It would be still better, from this point of view, if the State undertook to make provision not only for children above the number of two, hut for a wife and all children. At best, however, the expedient cannot bo regarded as anything hut a very risky experiment. If New South Wales cares to undertake it the rest of the worlJ will watch the proceedings with great interest and not without sympathy. It will at least bo an effort to ameliorate present conditions.