SURESAFEGUARD

Hokitika Guardian, 27 October 1933, Page 5

SURESAFEGUARD

SMALL INVESTORS • , •, ;• J - - HOLDINGS TOTAL £3,000,000,000. , ... : ,;V.; y,-}C , . v ' (Per British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 25. The fact that small investors in Great Britain have holdings, amounting to well over three tnousan<t, million pounds was cited by the President of the Board of Trade, Mr Runcintan, as one sure safeguard against drastic upheavals. in this country. He was speaking a.t a conference of the National Savings Movement, and he declared that no one could say a country like Britain, in which about fifteen million people held such an amount was not a very stable industrial and financial concern. Not another country in the world could show such a record. “I 'have heard it said one , of the . reasons why ■we are so stable while other Govern-ments-are tottering, and .falling, is due to national spirit,” he said. “There is something more than national spirit. In these figures there is abstinence from waste; there is accumulation of savings, built up from, small beginnings to a larger and larger amount, untu npw there is a great difference between the democracy of this country and abject poverty. What with this movement and all that is appertaining to it, and'investments which ' have taken place, there is very little doubt wo need have no fear of this country being swept,, away in a wave of Bolshevism.”; ,

Mr Runciman was, careful to emphasise that- the total mentioned belonged solely, to small,;, investors.,, and did mot include houses fully owned or investments in industrial’ > concerns, for any figures as regards these would be doubtful. Of national savings certificates, it intimated one-half were owned by small people. . The chairman -of the. savings committee said the movement had contributed inqiiph. .to,, keeping conditions steady in difficult times, and in ; helping 'British;, -trade recovery. signs of which steadily increasing. :,