Family Allowances SIR,—I read that the allowance paid in respect
of the third child of a family is to be increased and
I think that this is good at this time so long as we look where our charity is taking us.
In the days of, say, the Napoleonic wars, England was comparatively underpopulated, there was a pretty constant demand for cheap manual labour and there were the fighting services. A man and wife who produced four or more children had something to be proud of.
Today, England is crowded, the demand for manual labour decreases daily, as do all but the civil services, and there is far less reason for pride. In fact, it is arguable that a couple who limit their family to two or three healthy children to whom they can afford to give proper care and upbringing are much more of an asset, not only to the country, but to mankind. And that (RCs excepted?) the improvident and incontinent parents of large families are a burden on their fellow-citizens. And that their children in turn (if there is anything in heredity) are likely to be improvident and incontinent.
In short, more very often means worse.
It would be political dynamite to introduce and hell to administer, but think of a law which reduced the family allowance for the fourth, and each sub- sequent, child born perhaps after June 1968. It could even help the Pope to decide about the pill and it would surely bedevil present deliberations about the abortion laws!
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