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.