BRITISH SAVINGS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17640, 2 December 1931, Page 4

BRITISH SAVINGS

MONEY ASSETS OF WORKERS An amazing revelation has _ been made in the course of discussions in the Old Country over the necessity to prevent sterling from slipping out of the country, says the Montieal Star in a recent editorial, which follows: On the authority of lit. Hon. Walter Rundman, who ought to know what ho is talking about, since ho is a former president of the Board of Trade, and an acknowledged financial expert, there is invested through various savings institutions and organisations throughout Great Britain no less a sum than two thousand, four hundred and seventy million pounds, all of it,, he it noted, belonging to the, Wage-earning classes.

Mr. Rnndman says this figure represents “the capital holdings invested by people who are not of the rich class, '['hoy are not even middle-class, if you care to use that term. They aro wageearners.

It is very interesting to examine the figures and note how the total is made u'n. The figures given aro calculated on tlu, pound sterling as it, was when they were quoted by Mr. ltuneiman. First comes the Post OffiSo Savings Bank, v.hbh is not used by the rich or the well-to-do, hut almost exclusively by the humbler classes. Here there is £284,000,009 on deposit, and of tins luriouub 010,000,000 is invested in Government holdings.

Next come, the Trustee Savings Banks with £79,000,000 cm deposit. The Ilailway Savings Banks have £18,000,000 of the railway employees’ money in their keeping.

In National Savings Certificates, which the Government itself estimates are held half hv the wage-earning class, there is the sum of £239,700.000.

Ordinary life insurance held by the working classes amounts to £436,000,000, whilo the industrial insurance and provident societies hold £233,000,000, tho building societies £270,000,000, the industrial and provident societies £105,>030,000, tho friendly societies, including the working men’s clubs £221,000,000. tbs. National Health Insurance approved societies, £58,000,000; and so on.

There is something staggering about these figures. That the wage-earning classes should have to their credit in oiio form or another to the colossal sum of £3,470,000.000 almost beggars the imagination. It is, of course, a recognised phenomenon that in time of financial or business depression the deposits in savings hanks and other financial institutions used by tho masses go up; lint the figures quoted abovo servo to indicate very clearly that the British working man' is a thrifty individual at all times. They should servo to cheer up those who look upon tho present state of affairs as a prelude to the disruption of the Empire.