UNIVERSAL FAMILY BENEFIT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26558, 5 September 1947, Page 6

UNIVERSAL FAMILY BENEFIT

Sir,—lt is with regret that’l write in answer to your correspondent “ Kindergarten ” on the Social Security benefit. Methinks he is still at that wonderful institution learning to blow bubbles and full of enmity because his parents are only getting 10s a week for him instead of £4 a week. If he has left kindergarten he has certainly left it for another school and heard a lecture on wind by Professor Windard of the Wind Institute. I can assure him there are many, especially disabled persons, who are anxious to work and have hesitated for years to take the benefit but were forced to in the end. There are many disabled persons who would gladly take work tomorrow but are looked on as uneconomic in the eyes of nearly everybody.—l am, etc., Ernada. [Abridged.—Ed. O.D.T.] ..

Sir. —Your correspondents “ Fair Deal ” and P. O. P. in reply to my letter of August 26 are not to the point. Admittedly there are hardships. Sometimes on the side of the age .benefit class; but by comparison their hardships are a mere bagatelle compared with those of the great majority of young mothers rearing a young family to-day, always needing something in the way of food and clothing, which the children grow out of quickly. In these times of rising costs, we must help the young mothers to help the nation. They are our sheet anchor. —I am, etc., Kindergarten.