Sin-Mr. Pike cannot have it both ways. Either dependants count or they don't. He cannot ignore the married man's dependants and then bring forward the widow's and spinster's dependants to justify Equal Pay. At least the National Union of Teachers is not as inconsistent as that. It has gone all out for equal pay on the sole fallacious ground of the " rate for the job." without considering anyone's dependants, and without waiting for any extra assistance for the support of such dependants.
The National Association of Schoolmasters takes the sounder view that in formulating any salary scale the needs of the man and woman need separate consideration, chiefly because of dependants.
Does Mr. Pike realise that by advocating equal pay he not only makes it easier for the widow and the spinster to provide for their dependants, but he is also putting extra money in the purses of working married women whose husbands are earning and giving extra money •to widows and spinsters without dependants---money which they do not need? Some of these spinsters are living in their parents' homes and not paying an economic rate for hoard and lodging. Do they need the rise that equal pay will give them? Do the married men need a rise which equal pay will prevent their getting for at least another six years?
As to Mr. Pike's percentages, I read somewhere that 7-3per cent. of all women teachers have dependants other than husbands or children, and 14 per cent. of all men teachers have dependants other than wife and children.
The only fair way of coming to the rescue of all those who have dependants is either by giving them all family allowances or by large increases in income tax rebates. Income tax is individual. Scales of salary are comprehensive. We should not monkey about with scales of salary to assist individual hardship. Let income tax relief do that. Why give a rise in salary to 921 per cent. of women teachers, who have no older dependants, for the sake of relieving the 7/ oer cent who have?
W. D. Farrell. 33. Beechhill Road, S.E.9.