“DO IT NOW”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 May 1942, Page 2

“DO IT NOW”

LIBERTY LOAN APPEAL

ADDRESS BY ACTING-GOVERNOR

OF RESERVE BANK.

CALL ON SMALL INVESTORS

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day.

“Looking at the figures of the Liberty Loan, which are placed before me every morning, I see that up to Wednesday night £7,600,000 had been received,” said Mr W. L. Ward, actingGovernor of the Reserve Bank, in an address last night. “That is very good, but the number of subscribers is only 3900, which means an average subscription to the loan of round about £2OOO an applicant.” Mr Ward expressed his gratitude to those people who had already subscribed, and said that they had done their part promptly. His message to those people who were going to subscribe but had not yet done so was—“do it now and don’t wait.” There remained £7,500,000 to be taken up, and it was to the many thousands of small subscribers that he looked to provide the bulk of this amount. It might seem a pretty tall order, but he wanted from the people of New Zealand 20,000 to 30,000 subscribers to this loan.

This should not be impossible, for, looking at the financial returns, he found that lying in the trading banks on open current account there were some £61,000,000, and this, he added, was growing, and would continue to grow, as the bulk of the loan would be spent in New Zealand and would ultimately circulate through all channels of trade.

In the Post Office Savings Bank the depositors held £69,000,000, while the Trustees’ Savings Banks had between them some £15,000,000 to £16,000,000. Thus there was some £146.000,000 lying in the hands of the people in the various banks. Fifteen million pounds was not a very large percentage of that sum. In addition to the £146,000,000, there was in the pockets of the people—and in some pockets burning holes—the sum of £20,000,000 in notes, a portion of which surely should be available toward the loan.