HELPING OUT THE WAGES

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12528, 18 August 1926, Page 6

HELPING OUT THE WAGES

One of the most interesting measures of the session was introduced yesterday. It was the promised Family Allowances Bill. The Bill provides for a bonus of 2s a week for every child in excess of two up to the age of 15. The allowance is to be restricted to wage-earners in receipt of £4 a week or less. It is to be expended "exclusively toward the maintenance” of the child in respect of whom it is paid. The necessary moneys are to come out of the Consolidated Fund. At tins stage, it is possible only to discuss the fundamentals of the Bill. Early in his career as Leader of ths country, Mr Coates emphasised the need for assisting unskilled workers with large families. His sympathy has taken practical shape in the proposals formulated. It is to be hoped that the critics will strive to realise that the spirit underlying the Bill, not the 2s, is the more important consideration. To the man with a “quiverful,” the allowance will be exceedingly welcome. Two shillings is a small item by itself, but multiplied by four or five it will spell additional comforts of living to families harassed by present-day prices of essential commodities. At the same time, it puzzles us to know how the Government will enforce the condition that the allowance shall be expended in the manner prescribed. The Hughes maternity bonus, a Federal innovation designed to assist struggling households, was all too frequently devoted to purposes entirely foreign to those laid down in the Act. From the outset it was frankly impossible for the State to say whether the bonus was being misused or not. That situation can scarcely be avoided when the Family Allowances Bill becomes law, though the stipulation that the money is to be paid to the mother is some safeguard against widespread abuse of the concession. Under existing economic conditions, the working class parents of substantial families are penalised. The Bill in review aims to correct that lopsidedness. It may not go as far as the Labour • have it go; at least it represents a beginning along the right track. The redemption this session of the Prime Minister's pledge is all the more to be commended, because the dullness of the national finances might fairly have been advanced as an excuse for postponing the measure.