NATIONAL SAVINGS

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 9, 6 October 1941, Page 8

NATIONAL SAVINGS

More Than £3,100,000 A Year. NEW PLAN ANNOUNCED Receipts hl the first year of the National Savings Campaign will reach a total of more than 13,100,000, the chairman of the National Savings Committee, Mr. T. N. Smallwood, announced in aii address last night. Of this amount £1,800,000 has been saved ‘during the cjirrent financial year, which began on April 1. Steady progress in the drive for 250,000 National Savings accounts is also being made, and the number of accounts now opened has reached the large total of 227,000, only 23,000 short of the objective. After reviewing past progress, ;Mr. Smallwood said: “It has often been stated that national savings constitutes for many people their one and only war effort, but it is a war effort worth while, which, though involving sacrifice, can be undertaken by every man, woman and child. With this in mind, and the Empire’s call for savings, recently endorsed by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Nash, when he said that every penny possible is wanted in the savings scheme because it is helpful in financing the war and also in reducing the demand for the limited quantity of goods available, a new phase is to be introduced into the campaign by allotting to each city and town a national savings weekly quota based on a total Dominion annual saving of £5,000,000. “The many already engaged in a practical way in the national savings campaign are asked, where this has net already been done, to gather round them in each district a live committee composed of those imbued with the desire to serve in a national cause.” Symbol of Saving. So that each city or town should know the daily progress in the attaining of its quota, Mr. Smallwood said it was suggested that each local committee should arrange for the local Post Office flagpole (or other flagpole if.in a better display position) to be equipped with a flag and a “money ball.” Each Monday morning the “money ball” would start its journey from the foot of the pole, being hauled up the pole each day to a height representing the <atio of national savings receipts for the day to the weekly quota. When the ball reached the top of the pole, the flag would be broken out and fly for the rest of the week? Mr. Smallwood said that each organizer would receive full working details of the scheme this morning, and it was hoped that the symbol of determination—the “money ball” would be on all flagpoles immediately, and that flags of achievement would fly everywhere each week.

“Many districts have in the past exceeded the quotas allotted,” concluded the speaker, “and in no case should they be impossible of achievement, if, as is grimly necessary, the wholehearted help our Empire and Dominion needs is received from every individual in city, town and country.”