NATIONAL SAVINGS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24834, 6 February 1942, Page 4

NATIONAL SAVINGS

The scheme for the establishment of a national war savings fund has never quite realised the expectations of the Government. The response to it has fluctuated a good deal. The collection throughout the Dominion in the first week in December last was higher than in any other week since the scheme was launched, and it was necessary to go back to the first week in the preceding July for a collection of a comparable amount. The payments into the fund in different localities have similarly varied considerably. Those in Dunedin have generally fallen below the amount that was a few months ago assigned to this city as the quota at which it should aim for a weekly contribution, but we understand that there is this week a likelihood of the quota being substantially exceeded. The national savings account, it must be remembered, was opened because it was justly deemed desirable that a plan should be devised under which wage-earners and others, who were not in a position that might justify their becoming subscribers to a war loan or were without experience in the handling of scrip, should be enabled to make their contributions to the war expenses fund. It was hoped and believed that wage-earners and persons of limited means would welcome the opportunity that would thus be afforded to them of making their direct contributions to the war account. The scheme furnishes, in

short, the means by which people who are not liable for service with the armed forces may yet serve their country in its hour of danger. Viewed in this light it should make a clear appeal to everyone who is imbued with a strong sense of patriotism. The appeal should receive added force from the danger with which this Dominion is now confronted, necessitating, as it does, the calling of fresh groups of men to the colours and sensibly increasing the commitments of the Government for war expenditure. The hour has struck, in fact, when a greater effort by the Dominion and by all classes of the community in the Dominion must be made. The National Savings Committee in Dunedin would seem, therefore, to have seized the psychological moment for submitting a request for a local contribution of £IO,OOO next week to the fund. The amount that is sought is considerably in excess of the quota, but the exceptional circumstances of the times should impress themselves on the public as justifying personal sacrifice —and actually no sacrifice is involved in a contribution to the national savings account, as every payment to it bears interest at the current rate.