National Savings Campaign

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23351, 10 June 1941, Page 6

National Savings Campaign

In a statement reported yesterday Mr T. N. Smallwood, Ohalrman of the National Savings Committee, appealed to the public to double the number of nationar savings accounts opened. In seven months, 124,&71 persons have opened accounts—a.large total, but not a tenth of the number of. depositors in the Host Office .and . private savings batiks.. ilfp, that period, through the national savings :; accounts and .through the A purchase of national savings 'bolpds, £1,500,000 has been contributed to the War . Expenses Account—again, - a 1 large sum; but it represents less than £1- a head of the population, or about 6d a head weekly. In those seven months four times as much money was passed through 4he 'Dominion's totalisators; and beer, tobacco; .and confectionery also cost the Dominion’s consumers at least £6,000,000, probably a good deal more. Those items are picked out, not because expenditure on them is a bad thing, but merely ,to illustrate the country’s capacity to spend lavishly, and, consequently, to give some measure of its capacity to save, Nobody who sits .down seriously to calculate it can persuade himself that 6d a week a head represehts anything -like 1 the rate to which saving. could be lifted by. steady but still not severe and pinching effort. Mr Smallwood aims at a rapid expansion of the number of accounts to 250,000, a figure easily within reach. Rightly, he emphasises that what is needed is not the mere opening of accounts, not a single deposit, which is a mere gesture, but regular deposits. “ We want you to go on adding week by week “to your account,” he says; arid it is a pity that he did not give figures to show how many .Of the'accounts now open have been regularly added to, how many record only the initial entry, and compare the static and the rising totals: Without a widespread and sustained effort toßegularise saving and so to maximise it the National Savings Campaign cannot be more than a lame, success.

If it is to succeed: fully; the Government will have to see to it that tee need for it is better explained. EyenMr Smallwood, vigorously as he left out half the case. The cause, the against Nazism, he said, demands ' and • "more weapons, and the cost to each individual ;bjtin| out the'estential/act that saving for war fhecomie? sacrifices. The Government’s radio publicity is in this respect glarCinygly' ; at ,fault- Again and again the citizen is . doled C upon: ,1 to lend the Government his “surplus.” cadi and so win the war. In other worcls, y tip the Government such sixpences and

shillings as may remain after the week’s necessaries, luxuries, and extravagances have been paid for. When the Government appeals in that weak and timid strain, it will be answered accordingly. If it wants genuine saving, saving in earnest, it must tell the people why and how they are to save.'