New-York tribune., 1918-05-19
England Gets Its Thrift
Lesson Under Stress of W.,
One-Time In1provident Britishers Give Cov.rr~
&25o,0o0,oo0 of Their Savings Through de
National War Savings COMMITTEES
BY Hartley Withers

BY Hartley Withers
Editor of The Economist, of London
"1AR savings in England not only
" has poured a golden stream
into the British Treasury, but,
what is even more important, has
taught English folk needed lesson
concerning the proper use Of money,
which will have its effect for good for
all future time. This has come about
despite the fact that there never was
a more unfruitful soil for war savings
propaganda than England in 1914.
When the public was called upon to
assist in financing the war by saving
the entire country was honeycombed
with delusions concerning money and
the spending thereof, which made it
seem an almost impossible task to per-
suade it, within any reasonable time,
that, saving money was a patriotic duty
in time Of war or at any other time.
The well-to-do classes, the education
Of which concerning money matters
was mostly a minus quantity, were
convinced that since spending money
gave employment, it was at all times
the right and proper thing to spend
money as fast as possible, and so "help
poor people" who wanted work. It had
not dawned upon them that there is
any difference between spending money
on display Of fireworks and on build
ing factory to give employment to
those who build it, and to continue to
give employment to all who work in
it. and, moreover, to increase the SUD-
ply OF goods that man wants for his
living apd comfort. Among the poorer
classes this belief also flourished in a
vague, unconscious way, and in their
case the prejudice against saving was
greatly strengthened by the very mar
row margin that the general level of
wages gave them over subsistence.
Their power to save was 80 small that
the encouragement to save was re-
duced almost to vanishing point.
National Prejudice
Against Thrift
Apart from these economic delu-
slons which were cherished by the vast
majority of the people who thought
ABOUT money at all, prejudice against
thrift was almost ingrained as part
OF the English character. This was so
much so that the war savings mis-
slonarles IN the early days of the cam.
pa'gn were advised to avoid the use
OF the word in appealing to popular
audiences on the patriotic duty of put
ting money into victory. It was the be-
lief Of the average Englishman that
there was something mean about saw
ing. and that it was only done by
rather timorous and small-minded peo-
pie, who had not the courage to face
fortune with light heart, taking its
gifts and spending them freely, facing
the future in the happy belief that
something would always turn up. The
free-handed, fearless man who spent
his money as it came in was the one
who most easily gained the approval of
his fellows. Only few saw that those
who spend all that they get will al
most inevitably be obliged at one time
or another to live on some one else:
and the deeper economic fact which
lies behind saving in normal times
that without saving there can be no
new capital. and that without new cap
ital there can be no expansion of the
equipment Of industry-had not even
dawned except upon a small minority
of thinking Englishmen.
This being SO, it was an almost Her.
culean task to bring home to the slow
thinking Britisher the bedrock fact Of
war time economics-that wars needs
can only be provided if the civilian
population goes without many of the
comforts and luxuries that they en-
joyed in time Of peace, so that the labor
and energy required to produce them
may be diverted by the government to
the use Of the army and navy.
With regard to goods brought from
foreign countries there was rather less
difficulty. 1t was fairly easy to show
that goods brought from abroad in
creased our debt to neutrals and so
made it more difficult for the govern
ment to finance the war. But with re-
gard to goods made at home the old
fallacies. dressed~up in a new shape to
meet the needs Of war, showed surpris-
ing persistence. "What does it mat
ter" people said, Gas long as the money
is spent at home 7" "The money is
still in the country, and the shopkeeper
from whom / buy the goods can put
my money into war loan, and so the
government will get it." 1t took an
astonishing amount Of persistent argu-
ment to demonstrate that in the first
place one could not be sure that the
shopkeeper would, if he could, put the
money into war loan, and, in the sec
ond, that he could not, except a very
small part Of it, because all that he
would have to invest would be his net
profit on the transaction; that by far
the greater part Of the monev that noe-