BUILDING SOCIETY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXV, Issue 12303, 17 April 1937, Page 3

BUILDING SOCIETY

KING GEORGE Y.’S PLAN SCHEME TO HELP PALACE SERVANTS “B.P. Times” Special Service.—By Air Mail London, March 27. It was revealed this week that King George Y. considered launching a building society for the benefit og his servants, .but the scheme had to be abandoned owing to the financial crisis of 1931. The story was told by Sir Ralph Harwood, who was deputy treasurer to King George V. and later his financial secretary. Sir Ralph described the projected scheme as “the building society of the borrower’s dreams.” It was going to charge the borrowers only two per cent, on their mortgages, ana it would have been willing to advance the full j.„O per cent, of the cost of the mortgaged property. But it was to be strictly limited in its operation. Sir Ralph told of a conversation he had uad with'King George Y. in the spring of 1931, and went on: “His Majesty had been discussing with nie my financial report on the Civil List for the previous year, and at the end of our talk the King-said to me (which was so typical of him) words to the effect that the nnaiciil position was so satisfactory that he would like to do something for the permanent benefit of the servants. “He did not want to give all-round increases of wages, for their wages were quite good, and increases might not always be put to useful purposes, but might be wasted. “He wanted to do something which would help them and encourage them to be thrifty, and be ot, permanent Advantage to them; and he asked me whether I could not think out something to achieve this object. ’- “I readily undertook to do that, and before I got back to my own room the idea of a building society, subsidised by the King for the advantage of the servants, came into my mind. “I went straight back to the King and put the idea to him. He warmly welcomed it and in the weeks which followed the idea developed into a cut and dried scheme. “But, alas, the financial crisis ot 1931 came and the King immediately asked that the Civil List should be reduced by £ 50,000 per annum. And so liy pet scheme was dropped.”