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.
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