The Manawatu Daily Times Small Investors

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7302, 1 November 1933, Page 4

The Manawatu Daily Times Small Investors

The huge volume of the aggregate investment representing the small savings of the people of Great Britain has been emphasised by the president of the Board of Trade, lie places the figure at £3,000*000, surely a sufficiently impressive total. There has been evidence,' too, in Britain, that even the onset of depression at its worst has neither destroyed the habit of thrift, of making some iinaneial provision, however small, against an uncertain future, nor reduced the total amount accumulated in this way. A particularly striking fact discovered by a private investigator was that in certain centres in the industrial north, where unemployment was most rife, deposits with savings banks, contributions to holiday clubs, and shareholdings in cooperative societies had all increased during the most acute stages of the depression, when the lowest proportion of the people were in work. Mr. Eunciman rightly claimed that the existence of these savings was one of the greatest safeguards against the nation being overwhelmed in any movement bringing social disintegration. Turning from Great Britain to New Zealand, it is found that the same traits of thriftiness exist in this community, and that hard times have not interfered with he saving habits of the people. The records are not all for the same periods, but they arejmfficiently close in point of time to be taken together. At the end of 1932, for example, the deposits in the Post Office Savings Bank amounted to the very substantial sum of £43,250,000. There had been some shrinkage from the level of several preceding years, but there the total stood. At the same date the trustee saving banks held £10,130,000 on depositors’ account, and in their case there had been an unbroken rise over the years recorded. During the year 1931 the contributions to the National Provident Fund amounted to £253,000, while the fund stood at £3,203,000. The payments in premiums on ordinary life insurance policies in 1930 amounted to £3,155,000, and on industrial policies to £944,000. To these interests in building societies, State and private superannuation funds, friendly societies and other saving media must be added.