WAR SAVINGS--THE MONEY BEHIND THE GUNS
To win the war, we must save. There is no task more imperative,
no need more urgent, and there is no greater work than the work of
educating the peoples of our countries, and inducing them to save and
lend to their Governments.
The first Government Committee set up in Britain to do propaganda work
for war loans was established shortly after the war under the title
of the "Parliamentary War Savings Committee." It did some propaganda
for the early war loans. At the same time a very interesting group of
people associated with the "Round Table," and including in it many
of our most able financiers and economists--such men as the future
chairman of the National War Savings Committee, Sir Robert M.
Kindersley, K.B.E.; C.J. Stewart, the Public Trustee; Hartley Withers,
Lord Sumner, T.L. Gilmour, Theodore Chambers (now Controller of the
National War Savings Committee), Evan Hughes (now Organizer-in-Chief),
Lieut. J.H. Curle, Countess Ferrers, Basil Blackett, C.B.; William
Schooling and Mrs. Minty, Hon. Sec. Excellent articles were written,
leaflets published and meetings held at which many of us spoke
throughout the country, and valuable work was done towards educating
groups of useful people in the country.
In 1915 a committee was appointed by the House of Commons to go into
the whole question of Loans and Methods. The committee was presided
over by Mr. E.S. Montagu, and its findings were of great interest. It
advised the immediate setting up of a committee whose task it would be
to create machinery by which the small investor might be assisted to
invest in State Securities, and secondly, to educate the country as
a whole on the imperative need of economy. The Lords Commissioners of
His Majesty's Treasury set up the National War Savings Committee in
March, 1916, and in April, 1917, it became a Government Department.
The first chairman was George Barnes, Esq., M.P., but very soon the
chairmanship was taken by Sir Robert Kindersley, a director of the
Bank of England, who has spent himself unceasingly in his great task.
The committee started its work with a very small staff, Mr. Schooling
being one of the original half-dozen in it, and the schemes and
methods of work were evolved. It works in its organization by setting
up committees. The County is the biggest unit and the Hon. Secretary
of the County works at setting up Local Committees, which are
established in towns with under 20,000 of a population, and we put
a group of parishes together in rural districts under one Local
Committee. All towns, cities and boroughs over 20,000 population are
set up by Headquarters and have Local Central Committees. There are
now in England and Wales over 1,580 of these committees. Scotland
is worked by a separate committee. Linked up to these committees and
represented on them, the War Savings Associations work, and there are
now altogether over 40,000 of these with a weekly subscribing
membership of over 7,000,000 people.
[Illustration: 6 REASONS
Why YOU Should Save
1. Because when you save you help our soldiers and sailors.
2. Because when you spend on things you do not need you help the
Germans.
3. Because when you spend you make other people work for you, and the
work of every one is wanted now to help our fighting men to win the
war, or to produce necessaries and to make goods for export.
4. Because by confining your spending to necessaries you relieve the
strain on our ships and docks and railways and make transport cheaper
and quicker.
5. Because when you spend you make things dearer for everyone,
especially for those who are poorer than yourself.
6. Because every shilling saved helps twice, first when you don't
spend it and again when you lend it to the Matron.
POSTER ISSUED BY NATIONAL WAR SAVINGS COMMITTEE]
The committees also did the propaganda work for the January-February
Loan of 1917, when five billion dollars was raised (£1,000,000,000)
and over eight million people (out of our population of forty-five
millions) subscribed to the loan.
The work of the committees was admirable at that time and assisted
materially in the success of the loan.
The National War Savings Committee was also asked by Lord Devonport in
April to assist the Ministry of Food by doing, through its committees,
a great food-saving propaganda. This request was made, because, it was
explained, the War Savings Committees are the best organized and most
thoroughly democratic Government organization in the country. This
propaganda was also done with marked success. In autumn of this year
the committees have done an extensive campaign of education, and of
work to strengthen and enlarge their associations, and also to push
the sale of the new War Bonds.
The Treasury's policy now is to raise all the money needed by the
wisest borrowing from the people--day by day borrowing.
The entire work of the committees and associations is done
voluntarily--nothing is paid in the whole country for the work, and
the only charge is Headquarters Staff and propaganda expenses. The
County Secretaries are in most cases Board of Education Inspectors
whom the Board has generously allowed to help.
The War Saving Association is the body that sells the War Savings
Certificates, which are very much like the American ones. These are
also sold at all Post Offices and Banks. They cost 15/6 each, and in
five years from date of purchase are worth £1. The interest in the
fifth year is at the rate of £5.4.7 per cent. The interest begins at
the end of the first year and the certificates can be cashed at any
time at the Post Office with interest to the date of cashing. The War
Savings Certificate has the additional advantage that its interest
is free of income tax, and in a country where income tax begins above
£120 ($600), and is then at rate of 2/3 in £1 (over 10 per cent) on
earned income and 3/. on unearned, its advantage is very clear. The
interest does not need to be included in income returns--but no one
may buy more than 500 certificates. It is a specially good paying
security intended only for the small saver.
The War Savings Associations can be set up by any group of people,
ten or upwards, who wish to save co-operatively. They must establish a
committee, small or large. They must appoint a Secretary and Treasurer
and then apply for recognition to their Local Committee, or if there
is not one, to the National Committee. They are given an affiliation
certificate by their committee and receive free all the books, papers,
etc., necessary for carrying on an association. These are all supplied
by the National Committee to Local Committees.
The 40,000 Associations are in the Army, Navy, Munition Works,
Government establishments, Railways, Banks, Mines, Churches, Shops,
social groups, clubs, men's and women's organizations and 10,000 are
in the schools. The schools, where we receive subscriptions down to
2 cents have done wonderful work and the teachers have done a great
deal to make our movement what it is. We find the children do the best
propaganda in the homes. One teacher, after explaining to his children
what it all meant in the morning, in the afternoon had dozens of
subscriptions, and among them a sovereign which had been clasped
tightly in a hot little hand for a mile and a half's walk. The little
boy said, "I told Mother about it and she gave me that for fighting
the Germans."
Our Associations have unearthed piles of gold, one village association
alone getting in £750 in gold ($3,750). Old stockings have come
out and one agricultural laborer brought nine sovereigns to one of
our Secretaries one night, and asked her to invest it to help the
soldiers. She said, "Why did you bring it to me?" and he said,
"Because its secreter than the Post Office." And the Association
has the advantage that all its affairs are confidential, and though
figures and amounts are known, no single detail need be.
The schemes are two and apart from schools, the minimum weekly
subscription is 12 cents. There is a Bank Book scheme and a Stamp
scheme in which the member holds a card which takes thirty-one 12-cent
stamps, and when filled up is handed in to the Secretary and a War
Savings Certificate is received.
The financial advantage to the members of forming an Association is
quite easy to understand. Every week the takings are invested by the
Secretary (using a special slip given by the National Committee) in
War Savings Certificates, so that when members finish subscribing
for a certificate, instead of getting one dated the day they finished
paying for it, as it would be if they saved by themselves, the
Secretary has a store of earlier dated certificates on hand, and the
member receives one of these.
This works out quite fairly if one rule is observed--never give any
one a Certificate dated earlier than the first week they started
paying for it.
The people of England needed a great deal of education in war saving.
We had to fight the strongly held conviction that of all sins the most
despicable is "meanness," and that too much saving may seem mean.
No Englishman will ever really admit he has any money, and he was
inclined to question your right to talk about the possibility of his
having some--and your right to tell him what to do with it, supposing
he had any. Some of them were a little suspicious that it was the
workers we were talking to most--it was not--and some of them were not
quite sure they wanted their employers to know how much they saved.
That is entirely obviated by the men running their own associations.
Other people told you the people in their District never did,
could, or would save and were spending their big wages in the most
extravagant way--that pianos and fur coats appealed far more than
war savings certificates. The official people in the towns when we
approached them about conferences said much the same in some cases,
but, yes, of course, you could come and have a conference and the
Mayor would preside and you could try. And you did, and in six months
they had dozens of associations and thousands of members and had sold
some thousands of certificates. We sell about one and a half million
certificates a week and have sold about 140 millions since March,
1916. The appeal that won them was not only the practical appeal of
the value of the money after the war for themselves, to buy a house,
to provide for old age, to educate the children. The strongest appeal
was the patriotic one. Save your money to save your country. Throw
your silver bullets at the enemy. We have not been content to say only
"save," we have tried to educate our people on finance and economics.
We have tried to show them that no country can go on in a struggle
like this unless it conserves its resources--not even the richest
countries. We have tried to appeal to the spirit behind all these
things and our Chairman in one of his admirable speeches said:
"It is upon these simple human feelings of loyalty, comradeship and
patriotism that the great War Savings Movement is founded. Because of
the strength of this foundation I feel convinced that we shall succeed
in the great national work we are setting out to perform. However
difficult our task may prove, however serious the times ahead, this
spirit will carry us safely and triumphantly through everything, and
in the end we shall find ourselves not weakened but strengthened
on account of these same difficulties which we shall most surely
overcome."
The problem before us is the problem of finding ten times the amount
of money we did before the war for National purposes. We are spending
over $30,000,000 a day. By our taxations, which includes an 80 per
cent tax on excess profits, we are raising over 25 per cent of our
total expenditure. We have met some other part of our expenditure in
the three years of war by using our gold reserve very heavily; a great
deal of it in payments in America, where you now possess more than a
third of the gold of the entire world. We have also used a portion of
our securities, our capital wealth and past savings, and we have had
to borrow heavily. Our National Debt is now £4,000,000,000. It was
£700,000,000 at the outbreak of war. £1,000,000,000 has been lent to
our Allies and the Dominions.
Numbers of people have an impression that Governments can find money.
They can, to a certain extent, but only in a very limited way, without
great harm. There is in this creation an addition to the buying power
of the community, but if everybody goes on spending no addition to
the productive power, so it only creates high prices and hardship. The
inflation of currency caused by it is a risk and an evil. The sound
way is to get the money by taxation, from resources and in real
voluntary loans.
America's burden is very much the same as our own, and the need
here also of voluntary saving and lending to the extent of more than
half the expenditure is clear. America, like ourselves, is very
wisely trying to democratise its war loans. Nothing is wiser or
sounder or more calculated to make progress, and the changes after
the war which will come, sound and steady than widely-spread,
democratically-subscribed loans. These vast debts will have to be
paid by the ability, productiveness and work of all, so it is in the
highest degree desirable that the money and interest to be paid back
should go out to every class of the community--and not only to small
sections. It is well to remember, too, that the country that goes
to the peace table financially sound is in a position to make better
terms.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE POSTERS RECENTLY ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL WAR
SAVINGS COMMITTEE]
But the purely financial side of war savings is not the most important
one. We talk in terms of money but the reality is not money but goods
and services. The problem before our Governments and the problem
that cannot be left to our children (though the debts incurred in
securing the credits may be) is the problem of finding every day over
$30,000,000 worth of material and labour for the struggle. War savings
among the people is not only essential to secure the money needed--it
is far more essential from the point of view of securing the cutting
down of the consumption of goods and labour by our peoples.
Economists in peace time argue over what is termed "luxury"
expenditure, the wasteful expenditure of peace. War expenditure may
be correctly termed wasteful to a very great extent, and no country
can carry both of these expenditures and remain solvent. Luxury
expenditure should be entirely eliminated and the material and labour
which was absorbed by it should go into the war. If this could be
done completely, little damage would be done to the nation's economic
position. The thing to be clearly realized is that all the productive
effort of the nation is needed for three things--the carrying on of
the war--the production of necessaries and the manufacture of goods
for export. Every civilian who uses material and labour unnecessarily
makes these tasks harder and goes into the markets as an unfair
competitor of the Government. Every man and woman who saves five
dollars and lends it to their country give their country what is far
more important than the five dollars. They transfer to the Government
the five dollars worth of material and labour they could have used up
if they had spent it on themselves and that is its real value. This
means the needful purchases of the State are substituted for, instead
of added to, the purchases of the civilian.
Further, the influence of economy in preventing undue inflation of
currency and consequent high prices should be realized. A certain
amount of high prices in war is inevitable but if civilians buy
extravagantly, competition becomes intense and prices rise beyond all
need. The supplies are limited--in our case that is greatly added
to by the submarine menace--and the demands of the Government are
enormous. The competition between the Government and the people grows
more and more intense. Prices go still higher. The Government pays
more than it should and so do the people. Higher wages are demanded
with consequent higher prices, and so you get a vicious circle that
gets more and more dangerous. If the civilian will relieve this
pressure by demanding less, and cutting down his expenditure, prices
will become more reasonable and the cost of the war less.
The chief difficulty in time of war is to make people realize the need
of economy when they have, as our people have, more money than ever
before, when enormous sums of money pour out ceaselessly to the people
from the Government. They have to realize the fundamental difference
between peace prosperity and war prosperity. Peace prosperity comes
from the creation of wealth. War prosperity comes from the dissipation
of wealth--the use of all resources--the pledging of credits. It is
just as if we, as individuals, to meet a personal crisis, took all our
personal savings and borrowed all we could and proceeded to spend it.
The wise man or woman will save all of it they can and realize that
every unnecessary dollar spent helps the enemy. No civilian in a
struggle of this kind has any moral right to more than necessary
things. We want every man and woman to have all they need for their
efficiency. We would not say for one moment that every one can save,
and money spent on clothing and feeding the children and keeping the
home comfortable is well spent, but nothing should be wasted.
The standard in this matter should be set by the rich, on whom rests
the greatest responsibility, moral and social. It is impossible to
expect workers to save if they see luxury and extravagance everywhere
round them. One cannot too strongly say that.
The civilians who work hard to produce, who have done heavy toil in
munitions and industry, and receive good wages and then go out and
spend it lavishly might just as well have slacked at their work. The
ultimate effect is the same. They have undone the good they did. It is
as if soldiers having won a trench let the Germans come back into it.
People of small means often feel that all they can save is so small
that it cannot really help and wonder if the effort to save is worth
while, but if every person in America saved 2 cents a day, it would
amount to $730,000,000 in a year, and that would find a great deal of
munitions.
Finding the money by saving finds everything, releases men for the
army, finds labour and money for munitions, finds labour for ships and
relieves the demands on tonnage, finds supplies. It is the fundamental
service of the civilian, and no good citizen wants luxuries while
soldiers and sailors need clothes and guns and ships and munitions.
Everybody, man, woman, and child, can join the great financial army
and march behind our men, and women have done with us and can do
everywhere a great work in this. Women are on our National Committee
and doing a great deal of its organization. Our men in the trenches,
in the air, at sea, endure for us what we would have said before the
war was humanly unendurable. They pay for our freedom with a great
price--and we send them out to pay it--in death, disablement,
suffering and sacrifice. To fail in our duty behind them would be the
great betrayal.
Our treasures are very small things compared with our men. Shall we
give them and not our money?
[Illustration: REVERSE OF BEFORE YOU SPEND]
[Illustration]
A BOOKMARK, ISSUED BY N.W.S.C.
[Illustration: THINK BEFORE YOU SPEND]
[Illustration: REVERSE OF HOW 15/6]
ANOTHER BOOKMARK
FOOD PRODUCTION AND CONSERVATION
"The whole country ought to realise that we are a beleaguered
city."
--The President of the Board of Agriculture.
"If you have any belief in the cause for which thousands of
your fellow-countrymen have laid down their lives, you will
scrape and scrape and scrape, you will go in old clothes,
and old boots, and old ties until such a mass of treasure be
garnered into the coffers of the Government as to secure
at the end of all this tangle of misery a real and lasting
settlement for Europe."
--The President of the Board of Education.