102 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
single-man wage plus family allowances has recently been put forward 
with great ability by Miss E. F. Rathbone. She points out that 27 per 
cent. of the men workers over twenty in England are bachelors or 
widowers without dependent children; 24.7 per cent. are married 
couples without children or with no dependent child below fourteen ; 
16.6 per cent. have one dependent child; 13 per cent. have two depen- 
dent children ; 8.8 per cent. have three dependent children; and 9.9 per 
cent. have more than three dependent children. Hence a living wage 
based on the five-member family is adapted to the needs only of one of 
the smallest actual groupings. She argues, therefore, that the child- 
less man is getting too high a wage in relation to the man with a family, 
and that the distribution of the wage fund is uneconomical. Her sugges- 
tion is that the wives and children should be provided for out of a 
separate fund maintained by contributions from employers calculated 
according to the number of their male employees, whether married or 
single. Thus the employer will have no inducement to prefer single 
to married men, whilst every wage-earner and his family will be 
assured of an income at least adequate to the needs of healthy physical 
subsistence, and at the same time the wages bill of the country will be 
substantially reduced, thus relieving industry of a burden that is 
threatening to strangle it. In support of her proposals, she points out 
that, so far as the children are concerned, this plan has already been 
embodied in the New South Wales ‘ Maintenance of Children Bill,’ and 
that Mr. Hughes has foreshadowed the intention of the Federal 
Government of Australia to introduce a similar Bill into the Federal 
Parliament. It may be added that a scheme similar to that outlined 
by Miss Rathbone has actually been adopted by the textile industries 
of the Roubaix-Tourcoing district of France. 
Even if it be assumed that Miss Rathbone’s scheme would have the 
results that are claimed for it, I am strongly of opinion that the remedy 
would prove far worse than the disease. In the first place, it will, I 
am conyinced, prove impossible to confine this scheme to the wage- 
earners ; it must be extended to the salaried classes, and, in fact, to the 
whole community. It will thus inevitably fall to be administered by 
the State, and I confess that I can imagine no more detestable form of 
State Socialism. For it will involve a State interference in the home 
life which will make the war-time activities of the Government fade 
into insignificance. In the second pla¢e, however much we may 
attempt to disguise the fact, the effect of a family fund must be to 
subsidise families at the expense of the childless. I can see no justifica- 
tion for the argument that a wife and family are a burden which no man 
can reasonably be expected to bear, and from which, therefore, he must 
be relieved by the State or his more fortunate celibate fellow-citizens. 
Nor is his marriage necessarily a benefit to the community to be grate- 
fully acknowledged by a dole. In fact, I can imagine the Dean of St. 
Paul’s, for example, arguing that a premium should be paid to those who 
do not increase the population of the country. All virile and healthy 
nations have recognised that the husband is responsible for the main- 
tenance of his family, that he must be regarded as the bread-winner, 
and that only thus can the family be so closely knit together that it is 
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