(Editor "North-China Daily News," 1911-1930)
London, Nov. 25.
CESS Elizabeth and Princess Margaret became, respectively, the holders of the first Defence bond £5 and the first National Savings Certificate when they were issued to the public the day before yesterday. It is a good example but even without it the response by the country is already reported on official authority to be very great.
The National Savings Committee, which represents 41,000 groups and clubs in England and Wales (in Scotland, of course, no special organization is needed to induce thriftiness) is working to increase the number.
At least £150 millions a year are expected from the small man by these means.
But Sir John Simon's broadcast urging all to save as much as we can and lend it to the Government presents a dilemma. For the more we save, the less we spend, money ceases to circulate, tradesmen go bankrupt, the Government does not get the expected taxes and has to invent new ones, bye and bye, no one has anything to save or to spend. Money is, however, one of those mysterious things which no one understand except those who know how to make it. To them one leaves the dilemma, resolvifig manfully to buy a bond or two if anything remains in the stocking after payment of income-tax, rates, light, water, heat and higher prices for everything.
It was an ugly shock to hear from Sir John that the war is already costing six millions a day, the highest point reached in the last war. What it will rise to when battles begin to be fought does not bear thinking of.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.