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.
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.