Skinflint's City Diary
With inflation running unchecked it is about time the Department of National Savings suspended the activities of that army 'of workers (many paid with nothing more than an MBE for years of self-denying service) who week after week consider it a special form of patriotism to persuade children, the old and the poor to put something by in the form of National Savings stamps, gift tokens, Premium Savings bonds, and National Savings Certificates. The National Savings Committee consider it unnecessary to draw the trusting folks' attention to the ravages of a depreciating currency.
John Wood, the Deputy Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs wrote in the Spectator last month that a lad with fifty years of working life ahead of him would have, at the present rate of inflation, ip when he retires for every pound he now sets aside. The National Savings Movement should draw the attention of their customers to facts such as these and get the money they need by paying both proper wages to their workers and proper interest to their investors. Clive Jenkins and his union ought to have something to say about the voluntary and unpaid workers in this business.
The Weimar Republic discharged much of its internal national debt in the 'twenties through inflation. Those of us not in giltedged probably relish that a happy byproduct of the present economic state is that much of our own £20 billion or so of dated and undated liabilities forming the National Debt is, similarly, being reduced. Dated and undated Government stock involves risk, as everyone should have well known when ducking the responsibility of more thoughtful personal investment. Post Office savings and National Savings Certificates in their various forms are quite different in as much as they are energetically sold by workers who see their unpaid efforts — a hangover from the war — as a form of voluntary public service. The men exploiting these workers at the National Savings Committee make no specious proises but it is time their promotion leaflets carried, like a cigarette package, a note to protect the investor: WARNING by H.M. Government SAVING CAN DAMAGE YOUR WEALTH
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