WAR SAVINGS PLAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 September 1940, Page 3

WAR SAVINGS PLAN

POPULAR IN AUSTRALIA SUM OF £15,000,000 IN SIGHT. PUBLIC'S USEFUL SACRIFICE. A big War Savings . Certificates scheme inaugurated by the Australian Federal Government is proving the tremendous extent to which people in the lower income groups can assist in financing the Commonwealth's war effort. Already 10,811 war savings groups have been formed, with a total membership of 832,500. A statement issued by the Australian Trade Commissioner in New Zealand explains that it was originally proposed that an objective of £10,000,000 should be set, to be attained by June 30, 1941. But the sales campaign, inaugurated towards the end of May, met with such an immediate and widespread response that it was decided to raise the objectives to £15,000,000. In under two months, more than two-thirds of that total was reached, purchases to the end of July having amounted approximately to £10.500,000 —representing sales at the rate of about £206,000 a day since the campaign was officially opened. Group schemes for the purchase of War Savings Certificates sponsored by companies, institutions and other large employers of labour, have helped to swell the total materially. This form of voluntary financial sacrifice, which provides for the deduction of a certain amount each week from the pay envelopes of employees, is particularly valuable in that it means a direct contribution from current savings.

As in Australia, the people of Canada have been afforded the opportunity to lend their savings through purchase of War Savings Certificates. In its monthly letter for June, the Royal Bank of Canada emphasises that it will be of no service to his country for the depositor in a bank to use his balance to buy Savings Certificates or Government Bonds, if he does not accelerate and increase his savings.

There seems to be some misunderstanding, says the Royal Bank of Canada, as to the source of the funds which the Government may borrow. Sound finance demands that the principal source should be savings, and although past accumulations provide a good base from which to start, these must be supplemented and augumented by decreasing current expenditures, particularly on non-essential goods, and withholding from use for consumption purposes the income from increased industrial operations due to the stimulus of war. demand. “This,” the bank adds, “does not necessarily mean that persons previously unemployed and perhaps in relief, and others whose standard of living was formerly below the subsistence level are not to improve their position, but it does mean that any increases in income which accrue as the result of the war effort should not be used for luxuries and pleasures which hitherto could not be afforded.” In Canada, as in Australia, there has been some criticism of the remarks of those who have urged the necessity for regulated spending in existing circumstances. The underlying thought in most of this criticism is that as long as unemployment remains, private spending should be maintained at a high level to keep business active and to increase employment