On the dole
Sir: Lady de Zulueta (Letters, 9 February), like many people, is disturbed to discover that there are men with large families who choose to draw National Assistance and Unemployment Benefit rather than take the employment offered to them. These men are frequently regarded, quite unjustly in the majority of cases, as being lazy and shiftless.
The scandal is not that these men refuse, usually against their own inclinations, to work. The scandal lies in the fact that a man who is only capable of doing unskilled work should be expected to sell his labour for a wage which the state (never over- generous in these matters) considers to be well below subsistence level for a family of more than five.
In these circumstances, a man with four children can hardly be blamed for obtaining as high a standard of living as possible for his family. It is unreasonable to expect him to cause hardship to his wife and children by taking employment.
Until wages in this country are regulated by the size of a man's family (as is the case in several European countries) this situation will continue to exist.
Nancy Inwood 42 Rayleigh Road, Wimbledon, London SW19
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