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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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