£14,272,455 TOTAL

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 230, 24 June 1943, Page 4

£14,272,455 TOTAL

Liberty Loan Still Needs £20,727,545

INVESTORS NOW 26,335

Yesterday’s New Zealand subscriptions to the Third Liberty Loan at £686,095, making a grand total of £14,272,455, were well below the £1,250,000 average required in the remaining 17 days of the campaign to make the loan a success. Though there is usually a rush of subscribers in the closing stages, the present indications are that considerably more support is required. The total number of subscribers is 26,335 (yesterday 9413). Small investors are apparently coming in more freely, but it takes large numbers of these to make an aggregate sum that will appreciably increase the grand total. Up till Tuesday night the Wellington, district, with a target of £4,500,000, wanted £2,437,558 to reach its share, £2,062,442 having then been subscribed. The metropolitan area, with a Tuesday night total of £1,748,090, was then £1,751,910 short of its £3,500,000 target. This area is included in the district which covers as far as Pahiatua in the Wairarapa and Otaki in the Manawatu.

The Vacuum Oil Company Proprietary, Limited, has invested £50,000. Yesterday a man who intended to spend n good sum on a wedding present for his daughter, bought bonds for her at Liberty Corner, Wellington. His view was that when these were cashed after the war, the purchasing power would be greater and a wider range of goods would be obtainable. . The Wellington Air Base staff, which started off with £lOOO worth of bonds, has increased this total. In a. former loan, air stations held a competition in which the Wellington base finished high up. This time it aims to be at the top with its investments. The staff contribution scheme is being extensively developed in the Post and Telegraph Department. Wellington City Council traffic inspectors are forming a national savings group. More than £50,000, which included a big single investment, was handled at Liberty Corner yesterday. In two hours yesterday £aoo worth ofi stock and bonds was sold at an Army mobile signals headquarters operating in Courtenav Place, Wellington, for the lunch periods. Sales were transmitted by radio telephone to Liberty Corner. The loan objective is equal to an investment of £25 a head from every man, woman and child in the Dominion. Eliminating fighting men and children it means a call for £io a head from the remaining population. It is correct that there are millions on deposit in the banks, states the ‘National War Loan Committee, but some of thege millions are enforced “resting balances because business people with almost empty shelves must be ready to stock up when imports can arrive in larger quantities and the great output of workers in New Zealand industry can be turned from the present consuming channel which runs right into the firing line.