SAVING AND HOARDING

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 106, 7 May 1931, Page 14

SAVING AND HOARDING

A DISTINCTION DRAWN

gOURCE OF NEW CAPITAL

"Evening Post," 7th May._ Sir Austen Chamberlain showed the difference between suving and hoarding money when referring to the growth of the building society movement. He said that the total assets ,of the societies in England amounted to ,£350,000,000, and had more than doubled in the last six years. It was calculated t-lint they provided the opportunity # for one-tenth of the nation's annual savings., and that one-fifth of the population of this country were living in homes acquired through various building societies. A movement which had grown to that extent was one of the most important national features of our present-day life, and it was pre-eminently satisfactory that in times Aike the present, movements such as this und the National Savings Certificate movement were receiving a much larger measure of support than ever before. It might have been thought that general depression and world-wide distress would have deprived people of the means of saving, aud no doubt in many cases it had done this and even eaten into the savings already made. It would almost seem that the sight of this distress brought its own object-lesson and offered a new incentive to those move happily situated to make provision against a rainy day. , . ■ ■ There had been some ; criticism lately of the saving habit.' He did not think that criticism was necessary. He joined with anyone in condemning hoarding-, but between hoarding and saving there was all the difference in the world. The nation's buildings, its steamships, its railways, aud the machines which worked in Its factories and mills were all the result of past savings invested in the form of capital in new undertakings. Unless the stock of capital was renewed And increased in proportion to the growth 5u population the general level of We must go down, and no law, no Government, no individual could prevent it. "We cannot look only to millionaires or men of large fortunes to provide these funds for the national life and development. ■ The smaller people have to come sn, and through societies such as ours nnd movements such as the National Savings Certificate movement and other means together they have got to replace those vho had Wlcn out of the ranks.