4 , THE PRICE OF SURVIVAL" SIR,—There is a serious omission
from Mr. R. F. Harrod's article in your issue of August 28th. He writes: " If we think only of poverty we may be inclined to favour the proposal of a weekly allowance of 5s. for each child. Would it not be much better to provide los. each for the third and fourth children only? " But he makes no mention of the fact that all parents of three children whose income reaches £4 14s. a week already, receive an allowance of los. a week. Moreover, as the parents' income increases so does the allowance, which, for a family of three children, rises to a maximum of £75 a year where the income is £505 or over. The fact that these allowances are given in the form of Income Tax relief does not, of course, in anyway affect their true character as family allowances.
For the year ended April 5th, 1942, the State, at a cost of L80,000,000, made allowances in respect of 51 millions of children, the benefit being shared by 4 million parents. For the current year the figures will be still higher. I suggest that any discussion of the " price of survival " which fails to take account of these facts must be very misleading.—Yours
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