NATIONAL SAVINGS

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 December 1939, Page 8

NATIONAL SAVINGS

A SATISFACTORY RESPONSE.

[BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.]

RUGBY, December 9.

The demand for new savings certificates and defence bonds, which from the moment of their -issue was prompt, continues to be substantial. Satisfaction with (he progress of the national savings movement was expressed yesterday in a speech in the City by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Simon). The “Daily Telegraph” says: “No better evidence could be given of the people’s whole-hearted approval of the war and of their unqualified confidence in a victorious issue than their readiness to cast their sayings into the national war chest.”

Referring to Sir John Simon’s statement that they had now reached the stage of the war when saving in order to lend to the Government must take precedence over private spending, “The Times” says: “While we cannot allow normal industry to perish owing to the need to manufacture for 'export, the ' importance of keeping the home trade going cannot he overlooked. Broadly speaking, the nation is content to give its surplus spending power into the hands of the Government, subject only to the proviso that the Government will turn that spending power in the right direction and that it will use it without waste. That is why the demand for revision of our economic organisation has arisen and cannot be satisfied by the increase in our export trade during November. That increase is a cause for satisfaction but not for complacency.”