INCENTIVE TO SAVINGS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29679, 24 November 1961, Page 7

INCENTIVE TO SAVINGS

Government Urged To Act The Government w’as to be congratulated on stating quite clearly that taxation or any compulsory savings measure would become necessary only if voluntary restraints proved ineffective, says the new president of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce (Mr P. M. McShane) in the chamber’s newsletter. “It thus behoves all business interests to make a determined effort to get behind the Government in its objectives, in particular to reduce trading bank advances, restrict unnecessary consumption and over all to make a determined effort to bring the economy into balance,” he continues. “A practical application of the savings principle is to recommend subscriptions to the current £lom Government loan. “So far as the Government is concerned, there have been indications already that a determined effort is being made to cut down unproductive expenditure, one of the major causes of inflation. It is suggested that the Government should consider some increase in savings interest rates to provide incentive to investors and a further review of the premium bonds system used in England could well prove worth-w’hile.” There was a strong body of opinion that the Government should take a lead in bringing to everyone’s notice the need for some sacrifice in current consumption and of the need for immediate increase in savings, Mr McShane continues. It appeared that the public had not been made fully enough aware of the current situation as it applied to everyone and not just to the “other fellow’.”