GREATER THRIFT NEEDED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 10 December 1940, Page 4

GREATER THRIFT NEEDED

VALUE NOT ALWAYS REALISED The need for greater thrift in New Zealand to-day and the desirability of small home ownership were stressed by Mr Malcolm Fraser, chairman of directors of the National Permanent Building Society, in an address at the annual meeting of shareholders in Wellington yesterday. “Unfortunately, thrift rs not popular here, but it is still true that *To scoff at thrift is the refuge of the failure in life, for the capacity to save is one of the acid tests of charcter,’ ” said Mr Fraser. “Equally true is it to say that the national wealth of a country consists of the aggregate of the savings of its people—mostly small savings but large in aggregate so that one owes it not only to oneself but also to the country to practise thrift.” Mr Fraser added that the specific purpose for which any building society was formed was the promotion of home ownership. Its acceptance of money from investors and its offer of attractive terms to persons who wished to save systematically, and thereby surely, whether for home building or other purposes. were merely incidental, and provided the funds by which the society was enabled to achieve its object. The building society, in other words, helped the thrifty to save and used the fruits of thrift to help the would-be home owner actually to own his own home. “Co-operation is the key-word in these operations,” Mr Fraser declared, “and it is just this co-operation between investors who have already saved, the thrifty who wish to save, and those who wish to acquire homes for themselves, which has made the building society movement with its £770.000,000 of assets so popular in England. The tremendous growth which has taken place there since the termination of the war of 1914-18 can be attributed mainly to realisation of the advantages of home ownership, and the benefits to be derived from habits of thrift.”