“LEND TO DEFEND”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 May 1940, Page 6

“LEND TO DEFEND”

£1,000,000 A DAY. SUBSCRIBED BY BRITONS. One hundred million pounds in one hundred days has been voluntarily lent to the State by the people of Britain in response to the Government's appeal to “lend to defend the right to be free.”

The King, referring to this “remarkable result,’ said; “it is a fine example of the determination of my people to dedicate their energies and their resources to the winning of victory and peace.”

The investors were almost all “small men” —such as workers in offices and factories —and their total comprised £49,500.000 in National Savings Certificates price 15s each, and £50,500,000 in Defence Bonds of £5 each.

In spite of this huge sum from the ordinary citizen’s savings, the total amount of deposits in the Post Office Savings Bank and the Trustee Savings Bank has risen, after allowing for all withdrawals, by £8,000,000 since the war begjn. The State is also richer by an increase in the yield of taxation. Receipts in early March were already up by £100,000,000 for the financial year, and of this additional buttress to the nation's financial stability about £90,000,00 belongs to the war period. To maintain war supplies both for the Services and for export trade, the Ministry of Supply had ordered £140,000,000 worth of raw materials up to the end of the first six months of war, and are now spending at the rate of £16.000,000 a day to keep industry fed with the sinews of war and overseas trade.