BUILDING SOCIETIES

Evening Star, Issue 19760, 10 January 1928, Page 8

BUILDING SOCIETIES

SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE SOLVING THE HOUSING PROBLEM Building societies encourage sysLexnatiu thrift by every means in then Dower (says Mr Harold Bellman, 111 his most recent book, ‘The Building Society Movement'). To tiro investor they offer an attractive yield free from all complications, and they apply thornselves to the task of persuading and women to acquire, with the minimum of strain, the status or “ homeowner ” in substitution for that of tenant. Herein lies their social signilicanuo. . . They create an incentive lor saving in the minds of thousands of people to whom tiro normal channels of investment present no attractions whatever, and encourage them to form habits persist even after the- primary object has been attained. There are countless instances where borrowing members, having learnt the habit of saving money out of income to repay an advance, continue the periodical subscriptions after the mortgage is redeemed, and these sums accumulating in a savings account and supplementing ,tho value of the unencumbered property become a fund of inestimable yalue to the family. Further, the building society investor consciously or unconsciously becomes a social benefactor, lor ho is employing his surplus funds to enable his fellows to be well housed, and to acquire capital value and a stake in the country'. Such an investment cannot clash with Jhe strictest demands of ethics. ft is often urged, and with good reason, that some kind of control should he exercised as to uses to which invested capital should bo put, that the investor 'should see that it is employed worthily and for the public good. The building society provides a medium whereby the conscientious investor can secure that "his savings are employed in channels calculated to promote the well-being and prosperity of his lellow citizens.

The value of the building society movement is not to be measured by statistics, but in its inherent capacity to develop character among the citizens of b country. The great common denominator of British life is the British home. Hero it is that character is moulded. The decline of home life is the first retrograde step of a nation, and any influence which tends to strengthen home life tends to establish and consolidate all that is best and permanent in the Commonwealth. PRIDE IN HIS HOME.

The home-owner takes a justifiable pride in, his pn perty, and is ever conscious of the fact that ail he spends in money and labor thereon serves but ,to bind him more closely to the home of his choice. Tho working man who is merely a tenant has no real anchorage, no permanent abiding place, and in certain circumstances is fair prey lor breeders of faction and revolutionaries of every sort and condition. Homo ownership is a civic and national asset. The sense of citizenship is more keenly felt and appreciated, and personal independence opens up many an avenue pf wider responsibility and usefulness. The benefits of home ownership are pot only material, but ethical and moral ns well. The man who has somethin" to protect and improve—a stake of some sort in the country—naturally turns his thoughts in the direction of sane, ordered, and perforce economical, government. The thrifty man is seldom .or never an extremist agitator. To him revolution is anathema; pnd as in the earliest days building societies acted as a stabilising force, so to-day they stand, in the words of the Eight Hon. G. N. Barnes, as “a bulwark against Bolshevism and all that Bolshevism stands for.” To propound a theory is one thing, to act upon it is quite a different matter. Whatever the political faith of tho borrowers concerned, records show that over 75 per cent, of building society mortgagers are for. small amounts of about £SOO and under, on behalf of individual owners, and that upwards of three-quarters of a million houses are being purchased by people of small means through tho facilities provided by building societies. The bearing of these figures on the question of national stability is so obvious,as to need no pmphasis. During tho Great War there was Virtually a cessation of private building, and consequently mortgage business yvas severely limited. The societies patriotically invested their large surplus funds in war loans. Then came the armistice, and the nation was face to face with a housing problem of un- . paralleled magnitude. All tfie material lay ready to hand for a conflagration. Political reputations were shattered in quick succession. Building societies, with their simple procedure and local knowledge, at onco placed their enormous resources at the service of the houseless. Building was stimulated, and throughout Great Britain advances were completed as far as properties could be carefully valued and titles reported upon. There was an absence of departmental circumlocution or the masterly inactivity of an average municipal authority. . Who shall judge what this prompt and publicspirited service saved the State by way of social upheaval? . . . Only a few short years ago building societies were, in the main, little known and purely local associations, existing more particularly to minister to the needs of the “ industrious ” closes. Today, by virtue of the indispensable social service they render to all classes of the community, they have earned the indisputable right to a place in the front runt 1 Of .the .nation’s great institutions. The purely local has become the i mMpfoafiy. national