THE SAVING HABIT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 119, 22 May 1941, Page 8

THE SAVING HABIT

As a result of the reclamation of waste material over £5000 has been paid to the Patriotic Fund Board. This is highly satisfactory for a beginning, but it does not represent the total to credit.. It is the amount paid for collected waste materials, but in addition the country has gained substantially by obtaining these materials without having to pay in sterling for imports—if they could have been imported. Further, it must be reckoned as a beginning only, for we in New Zealand have had to begin right at the start to relearn saving practices. Wasteful and prodigal use .of materials has become a settled bad national habit— so settled that the person who did not conform to it was apt to be regarded as mean. Perhaps we are not altogether to blame for this. In normal times, lacking a strong industrial basis, the country could not use many of the scraps that in manufacturing countries would be put to good account. But now circumstances are changed and changing further, and we must revise both our ideas and our habits. Useful odds and ends must be used. / This will help the war effort now, and, in the future, will promote greater efficiency in industry. It will correct untidiness, the cluttering up of premises with unwanted odds and ends, and will eliminate that loss of material and effort which may well make all the difference between success and failure in industry. Let us hope that now the effort has begun it will be sustained, and wastefulness will not again be a national characteristic.