• * * * BUILDING SOCIETY OUTLOOK
As the dust settles after the first flurry to adapt ourselves to war-time conditions it is possible dimly to discern the new shapes of some of the largest figures on the financial stage. Among the most important is the building society movement which canalizes the savings of some 3,000,000 shareholders and depositors, and lends out money to nearly 1,500,000 borrowers. Neither class of member stands where it stood before the war. The borrower has perhaps been called to the Colours or lost his job. If so, he has to ask his society for latitude. If his case be strong he receives it, though in general the concessions which building societies have found it necessary to make concern only the repayment of capital. That part of the householder's payments which represent interest has not been much affected.
The applicant for a new advance finds himself in a less advantageous position. There is in war-time not only less demand for loans against house properties but also less money in the societies' coffers, and the higher bank rate and higher interest rates make it harder for the societies to augment their resources. Thus there is no loan tap which the house purchaser can turn on at will 'and such new loans as are made are treated as individual cases strictly on their merits. They carry rates of interest of 5 per cent. to 51 per cent., but applications which were already under way at the outbreak of war are being completed at the old rate of 41 per cent.
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