Chapter 6

The rich really needed no organised stimulus to retrench. The great target for attack was the mass of the population who did not know what it meant to save and who required just the sort of constructive lesson that an organised thrift movement could teach.

Much of the increase in wages among the workers was going for food and drink. Hence the opening assault was made on the market bill. Fortunately, an agency was already in operation. At the outbreak of the war a National Food Fund was started to feed the hungry Belgians. That work had become more or less automatic (the Belgians' appetite is a pretty regular clock), so its machinery was now trained to the twin conservation of British stomachs and savings.

"Save the Food of the Nation," was the appeal that went forth on every side. "No One is too Rich or Poor to Help. Every man, woman and child in the country who wants to serve the state and help win the war can do so by giving thought to the question of conserving food. Since the great bulk of our food comes from abroad, it takes toll in men, ships and money. Every scrap of food wasted means a dead loss to the Nation in men, ships and money. If all the food that is now being wasted could be saved and properly used it would spare more money, more ships, more men for the National defence."

Now began a notable campaign of education which was carried straight into the kitchen. Food demonstrators whose work ranged from showing the economy of cooking potatoes in their skins to making fire-less cookers out of a soap box and a bundle of straw, went up and down the Kingdom holding classes. In town halls, schools, village centres and drawing-rooms, mistress and maid sat side by side. "Waste nothing," was the new watchword.

Backing up the uttered word was a perfect deluge of literature that included "Hand Books for House Wives," "Notes on Cooking," "Hints for Saving Fuel," "Economy in Food," in fact, dozens of pamphlets all showing how to make one scrap of food or a single stick of wood do the work of two.

The people behind this movement knew that with waste of food was the kindred waste of money. They realised, too, that even the most effective preachment for food economy must inevitably be met by the cry, "Everybody must eat." With money, on the other hand, there seemed a better opportunity to drive home a permanent thrift lesson. So the forces that had built the bulwark around the English stomach now set to work to rear a rampart about the English pocketbook.

Circumstances played into their hand. The Great War Loan of $3,000,000,000 had just been authorised. "Why not make this loan the text of a great National thrift lesson and give every working man and woman a chance to become a financial partner of the Empire," said the saving mentors. It was decided to put part of this loan within the range of everybody, that is, to issue it in denominations from five shilling scrip pieces up, to sell it through the post office and thus bring the new savings bank to the very doors of the people.

Again a machine was needed, and once more as in the case of the food campaign one was well oiled and accessible. It was the organisation that had raised, by eloquent word and equally stimulating poster and pamphlet, the great volunteer army of 3,000,000 men. Just as it had drawn soldiers to the fighting colours, so did it now seek to lure the savings of the people to the financial standard of the nation.

The Parliamentary Recruiting Committee became the Parliamentary War Savings Committee and it loosed a campaign of exploitation such as England had never seen before. From newspapers, bill boards and rostrums was hurled the injunction to buy the War Loan and help mould the Silver Bullet that would crush the Germans. It was literally a "popular loan" in that the five shilling short-term vouchers, bought at the post office, and which paid 5 per cent, could be exchanged when they had grown to five pounds for a share of long-term War Stock paying 4½ per cent. The higher rate of interest was the inducement to begin saving and it worked like a charm.

Tribute to the efficacy of this programme is the fact that more than 1,000,000 English workers purchased the War Loan. Through this procedure they learned, what most of them did not know before, that when you put money out to work it earns more money. It meant that they had become investors and were starting on the road to independence.

But this campaign, admirable as it was in scope and execution, failed in its larger purpose of reaching the great mass of the people. While more than 1,000,000 workers participated in the loan their holdings really comprised but a small percentage of the immense total. The bulk of the buying was by banks, corporations, trustees, and wealthy individuals. The message, therefore, of permanent thrift combined with a more or less continuous investment opportunity for every man still had to be delivered. All the while the Empire hungered for money as well as for men.

Such was the state of affairs when the Chancellor of the Exchequer appointed the Committee on War Loans for the Small Investor. It had two definite functions: to raise funds for the national defence and to provide through the medium selected some simple and accessible means for the employment of the average man's money.

This Committee recommended that an issue be made of Five Per Cent Exchequer Bonds in denominations of five, twenty and fifty pounds to be sold at all post offices. It was an excellent idea and was immediately authorised by the Treasury. The Exchequer Bond became part of the swelling flood of British war securities and might have had a distinction all its own but for the enterprise and sagacity of one man who happened to be a member of this Committee.

That man was Sir Hedley Le Bas. You must know his story before you can go into the part that he played in the great drama of British investment that is now to be unfolded. A generation ago he was the lustiest lad in Jersey, his birthplace. His feats as swimmer were the talk of a race inured to the hardships of the sea. After seven years in the Army he came to London to make his fortune. From an humble clerical position he rose to be head of one of the great book publishing houses in Great Britain, employing over 400 salesmen, spending over a quarter of a million dollars a year in advertising alone.

Sir Hedley is big of bone, dynamic of personality, more like the alert, wideawake American business man than almost any other individual I have ever met in England. One day he gave the British publishing business the jolt of its long and dignified life by taking a whole page in the _Daily Mail_ to advertise a single book. His colleagues said it was "unprofessional," that it violated all precedent. Sir Hedley thought to the contrary and in vindication of his judgment the book developed into a "best seller." That pioneer page in the _Mail_ was the first of many.

Prior to the outbreak of the present war, Sir Hedley had been consulted by the then Minister of War as to the most advisable means of getting recruits.

"Why don't you advertise?" he asked.

"It's never been done before," replied the Minister.

"Then it's high time to begin," said the hard-headed Jerseyman.

His plan scarcely had time to be considered when the Great War broke. Sir Hedley was made a member of the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee and with Kitchener helped to face England's huge problem of raising a volunteer army. How was it to be done?

Hardly had the new War Chief warmed the chair in his office down in Whitehall, than Le Bas came to him with this suggestion: "The quickest way to raise the new army is to advertise for men."

Kitchener's huge bulk straightened: he looked surprised: the idea seemed unsoldierly, almost unpatriotic. But he knew Le Bas. After a moment's hesitancy:

"All right. Go ahead."

Under Le Bas was launched the publicity campaign which no man who visited England during its progress will ever forget. This galvanic publisher geared all the Forces of Print up to the idea of selling Military Service. Instead of books the Merchandise was Men.

The most lureful, colourful and effective posters that artist brain could possibly conceive flashed from every bill board in the Kingdom. No one could escape them.

It was Le Bas who created the phrase "Your King and Country Need You" that went echoing throughout the Kingdom and drew more men to the colours perhaps than any other plea of the war.

When the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee became the Parliamentary War Savings Committee, Le Bas went with it. Its first job was to sell the Great War Loan. The Treasury officials wanted it done in the usual dignified British way.

At the first meeting of the Committee, Le Bas objected to this procedure. Early the next morning he went around to the house of Reginald McKenna, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"The Chancellor is in his bath," said the footman who opened the door.

"Then I'll wait until he can get a robe on," said Le Bas.

Fifteen minutes later, the man who holds the British purse strings sat clad in a dressing gown and listened to the suggestion that revolutionised British methods of financial salesmanship.

"If we want to sell the War Loan, Mr. Chancellor," said Sir Hedley, "we will have to advertise in a big way. It's a business proposition and we must adopt business methods."

"It sounds interesting," said the Chancellor. "Come to my office at ten and we will talk it over."

It was then 8:30 o'clock. By the time he met the Chancellor at the Treasury he had dictated the whole outline of the advertising campaign. The scheme was adopted: the Government spent fifty thousand pounds advertising the loan but it sold every penny of it.

This then was the type of man who had sat in the six meetings of War Loan for Small Investors and listened to many conventional suggestions. He instinctively knew that the Five Pound Exchequer Bond was not a sufficient bait to hook the small savings of the great mass of the people.

"We've got to make some kind of attractive offer," said Sir Hedley to himself. "In fact, we must give the investor something for nothing to make him lend his money to the country. A pound note looks big to the average Englishman. Why not give him a pound for every fifteen shillings and sixpence that he will lay aside for the use of the Nation? In other words, why not make patriotism profitable?"

When he laid this plan before the Committee, it was unanimously approved. The maxim of "Fifteen and Six for a Pound" was now unfurled to the breezes and the super-campaign to corral the British penny was on, under the auspices of the National War Savings Committee which now superseded all other organisations as the head and front of the National Thrift idea.

Although he had a strong selling appeal in the fact that he was giving the small British investor something for nothing, Sir Hedley realised that his first bid for savings must have the real punch of war in it. What was it to be?

He thought a moment and then went over to the War Office where Lloyd George had just succeeded the lamented Kitchener.

"What could a man buy for fifteen and six?" he asked the many-sided little Welshman who was progressively filling every important job in the Empire.

"He could buy six trench bombs," was the reply.

"What else?" queried the publisher.

"He could get 124 cartridges or--"

"That's enough!" exclaimed Le Bas. "I've got it!"

Lloyd George looked a little startled, whereupon his visitor remarked: "You have given me just the thing I wanted. Wait until to-morrow and you will find out what it is."

The very next day Lloyd George and a great part of the whole British Nation knew exactly what Sir Hedley got out of his interview with the War Minister, because the first advertisement announcing the new type of War Loan read like this:

"ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOUR CARTRIDGES FOR FIFTEEN AND SIX, AND YOUR MONEY BACK WITH COMPOUND INTEREST

"Do you know that every 15/6 you put into War Savings Certificates can purchase 124 rifle cartridges?

"How many Cartridges will you provide for our men at the Front?

"For every 15/6 you put into War Savings Certificates now you will receive £1 in five years' time. This is equal to compound interest at the rate of 5.47 per cent.

"Each year your money grows as follows:

In 1 year it becomes 15/9 In 2 years it becomes 16/9 In 3 years it becomes 17/9 In 4 years it becomes 18/9 In 5 years it becomes £1

"If you need it you can withdraw your money at any time, together with any interest that has accrued."

This advertisement made a good many people sit up because it brought home for the first time one concrete use of the money absorbed in war loans.

The National War Savings Committee had two things to sell. One was the Five Per Cent Exchequer Bond: the other was the new Fifteen and Six War Savings Certificate. The promoters were quick to see that while the Exchequer Bond was very desirable, the principal effort must be concentrated on the War Savings Certificate for which the widest appeal and the best selling talk could be made.

That it was a good "buy" nobody could deny. It was the obligation of the British Government: it was free from Income Tax: it could be cashed in at any time at a profit: and it made the owner part and parcel of the financing of the war. Every post office and nearly every bank became a selling agent. In short, it was a simple, cheap and worth-while investment absolutely within the scope of every one.

At the outset the sale was restricted to those whose income did not exceed $1,500, the purpose being to keep the investment among the wage earners. So many munition workers were receiving such large incomes that this ban was removed. The only limitation imposed was that no individual could hold more than 500 Certificates. This did not prevent the various members of a family, for example, from each acquiring the full limit.

Having decided to make the War Savings Certificate its prize commodity, the Committee proceeded to launch a spectacular, even sensational promotion campaign. J. Rufus Wallingford in his palmiest days was never more persuasive than the literature which now fairly flooded Great Britain.

The phrase "Your King and Country Need You" that had stirred the recruiting fever now had a full mate in the slogan "Saving for Victory" which began to loosen pounds and pence from their hiding places. The injunction that went forth everywhere was

"WORK HARD: SPEND LITTLE: SAVE MUCH"

From every bill board and every newspaper were emblazoned:

"SIX REASONS WHY _YOU_ SHOULD SAVE"

Here are the reasons:

1. Because when you save you help our soldiers and sailors to win the war.

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, or to produce necessaries, or to make goods for export.

4. Because by going without things and 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 every one, especially for those who are poorer than you.

6. Because every shilling saved helps twice, first when you don't spend it and again when you lend it to the Nation.

The word "Save" which had dropped out of the British vocabulary suddenly came back. It was dramatised in every possible way and it became part of a new gospel that vied with the war spirit itself.

The National War Savings Committee became a centre of activity whose long arms reached to every point of the Kingdom. Branch organisations were perfected in every village, town and county: the Admiralty and the War Office were enlisted: through the Board of Education every school teacher became an advance agent of thrift: the Church preached economy with the Scripture: in a word, no agency was overlooked.

The sale of Certificates started off fairly well. On the first day more than 2,000 were sold and the number steadily increased. But while many individuals rallied to the cause, there was not sufficient team work.

One serious obstacle stood in the way. While fifteen shillings and a sixpence is a comparatively small sum to a man who makes a good income, it looms large to the wage earner, especially when it has to be "put by" and then goes out of sight for four or five years. So the National War Savings Committee set about establishing some means by which the average man or woman could start his or her investment with a sixpence, that is, twelve cents. Even here there was a difficulty. Millions of people in England could save a sixpence a week, but the chances are that before they piled up the necessary fifteen and six to buy the first Certificate they would succumb to temptation and spend it.

The English small investor, like his brother nearly everywhere, is a person who needs a good deal of urging or the power of immediate example about him. Thereupon the Committee said: "What seems impossible for the individual, may be possible for a group."

Thus was born the idea of the War Savings Association, planned to enable a group of people to get together for collective saving and co-operative investment. This proved to be one of the master strokes of the campaign. From the moment these Associations sprang into existence, the whole War Savings Certificates project began to boom and it has boomed ever since.

War Savings Associations are groups of people who may be clerks in the same office, shop assistants in the same establishments, workers in the same factory or warehouse, people attending the same place of worship, residents in any well-defined locality such as a village or ward of a town, members of a club, the servants in a household: in short, any number of people who are willing to work together. Some have been started with 10 members, others with as many as 500. Up to the first of January nearly 10,000 of these Associations had been formed throughout the Kingdom.

Now came the inspiration that was little short of genius for it enabled the lowliest worker who could only set aside a sixpence a week to become an intimate part of the great British Saving and Investment Scheme. The idea was this:

If one man saves sixpence a week, it would take him thirty-one weeks to get a One Pound War Certificate. But if thirty-one people each save sixpence a week, they can buy a Certificate at once and keep on buying one every week. Thus their savings begin to earn interest immediately. Thus every War Savings Association became a co-operative saving and investment syndicate--a pool of profit.

How are the Certificates distributed? The usual procedure is to draw lots. In a small Association no member is ordinarily permitted to win more than one Certificate in a period of thirty-one weeks, except by special arrangement. Each Association, however, can make its own allotment rules. The value of winning a Certificate the first week is that the winner's 15/6 will have grown to one pound in four years and a half instead of five. This is broadly the financial advantage gained by being a member of an Association, although the larger reason is that it is more or less compulsory as well as co-operative saving.

Britain is buzzing with these War Savings Associations. You find them in the mobilisation camps, on the training ships, on the grim grey fighters of the Grand Fleet, even in the trenches up against the battle line. The London telephone girls have their own organisation: sales forces of large commercial houses are grouped in thrift units: there are saving battalions in most of the munition works, and so it goes. In many of the big mercantile establishments that have Associations, the weekly drawings of Certificates with all their elements of chance and profits are exciting events.

Many Britishers shy at co-operation. For example, they like to save "on their own." To meet this desire, the War Savings Committee devised an individual saving and investment plan which begins with a penny, that is two cents. Any person can go to the Treasurer of a War Savings Association and get a blank stamp book. Each penny that he deposits is marked with a lead pencil cross in a blank square. When six of these marks are recorded, a sixpenny stamp is pasted on the blank space. As soon as the book contains thirty-one stamps it is exchanged for a War Savings Certificate.

Still another plan has been devised to meet requirements of people who do not care to affiliate with the War Savings Associations. Any post office will issue a stamp book in which ordinary sixpenny postage stamps can be pasted. When thirty-one have been affixed they may be exchanged at the post office for a pound Savings Certificate. These books have this striking inscription on their cover: "Save your Silver and it will turn into Gold! 15/6 now means a sovereign five years hence."

The whole Savings Campaign is studded with picturesque little lessons in thrift. The London costers--the pearl-buttoned men who drive the little donkey carts--subscribed to $1,000 worth of Certificates in a single week, although they had made a previous investment of $4,000.

In hundreds of factories the idea has taken root. In some of them War Savings subscriptions are obtained by means of deductions from wages. Employees can sign an authorisation for a certain amount to be taken each week or month out of their wages. They get accustomed to having two, three, four or five shillings lifted out of their wages and thus their saving becomes automatic.

Often the employer helps the movement by contributing either the first or last sixpence of each Certificate or offering Certificates as bonuses for good conduct or extra work. When one small employer that I heard of pays his men their War Bonus, he gets them, if they are willing, to place two sixpenny stamps on a stamp card, for which he deducts tenpence. The employees are thus given twopence for every shilling they save. When these cards bear stamps up to the value of 15/6 they are exchanged for War Savings Certificates.

No field has been more fruitful than the public schools where the thrift seed has been planted early. In hundreds of public educational institutions Savings Clubs have been formed to buy Certificates. In Huntingdonshire, where there were less than 150 pupils, more than $35.00 was subscribed in a single morning. At Grimsby a successful trawler owner gave $5,000 to the local teachers' association to help the War Savings crusade. A shilling has been placed to the credit of every child who undertakes to save up for a War Savings Certificate, the child's payments being made in any sum from a penny up. Ninety-five per cent of the children in the town have begun to save. Similarly, a councillor of Colwyn Bay has offered to pay one shilling on each Certificate bought by the scholars of one of the town's schools, and also offered to add fifty per cent to all sums paid into the school savings bank during one particular week, provided that the money was used to purchase War Savings Certificates.

Almost countless schemes have been devised to instil, encourage and develop the thrift idea. In certain districts, patriotic women make house to house canvasses to collect the instalments for the Certificates. They become living Thrift Reminders. Tenants of model flats and dwelling houses pay weekly or monthly War Savings Certificates at the same time they pay their rent.