bers. It could be paid at the Post Office or could be credited to an account in a savings bank. This scheme was not adopted on a wide scale and was abandoned at a later date. Schemes involving sub- scriptions for certificates were found in practice to be more popular and more easily worked.
Scheme zA. Monies subscribed through an association are invested in War Savings certificates. Subscriptions of 6d. or any number of sixpences are accepted. War Savings certificates are purchased from the Post Office with the cash received by the secre- tary from the members, and they are dated at the time of purchase, but they are not registered. Each member when he pays his first subscription is given a book. His subscriptions are entered in the book as and when they are paid. When the subscription of any member amounts to 155. 6d., he is given a certificate and the regis- tration portion of the certificate is then filled in and lodged at the Post Office. The method of distributing certificates of different dates and consequently of different encashment values is settled by the committee of each association. Members can withdraw before reaching the full 153. 6d. and the amount deposited is repaid, but without interest. The advantage of the scheme lies in this, that if 31 people individually save 6d. a week for 31 weeks, they will each have a certificate at the end of 31 weeks, but if they join an association to which they pay 6d. a week, the association is able to buy one certificate each week, and at the end of 31 weeks it will have 31 certificates. The first of these certificates is dated 30 weeks earlier than a certificate bought by any member acting alone. On the average, they will be dated 15 weeks earlier and consequently will mature 15 weeks earlier. The books are provided free of cost by the National Committee. The book-keeping is necessarily some- what detailed, but it is essential for the protection of members.
This scheme was probably the most widely adopted.
Scheme zB is similar to Scheme 2A, but the certificates are not distributed until one year after the subscriptions of any mem- ber amount to 153. 6d. The scheme was not widely adopted, people preferring to get their certificates immediately they had made up their 153. 6d.
Scheme j is in essence a savings bank all the money received being invested in War Savings certificates. The minimum sub- scription is one penny. Any number of pennies are accepted. Sub- scriptions are withdrawable at 14 days' notice, or without notice in urgent cases. Each member has a book in which subscriptions are entered. On the completion of the payment of 153. 6d. the member is registered as being entitled to the payment of l at the end of five years. The certificates are not distributed but are held by the association until they mature. A few associations in schools adopted this scheme, but after a time the majority ended by distributing the certificates to their members and adopting Scheme 2A.
Scheme 4 was a scheme for investment by instalments in Ex- chequer bonds and War Savings certificates, the Treasury pay- ing interest on the amounts received at 5% per annum. During the war no part of the amounts paid into the Treasury, were with- drawable in cash. When an Exchequer bond or certificate was fully paid for the Treasury issued the security to the association for delivery to the member entitled to it, the cost of the securities being charged to the amount standing to the credit of the assocja- tjon with the Treasury. Cash was to be returned to the associa- tion three months after the end of the war. This scheme was not found satisfactory and was little adopted.
Scheme 5 is a scheme similar in principle to Scheme aA, but sub- scriptions are paid by buying from the association sixpenny coupons. The coupons are of a special " Swastika " design and can only be used for subscribing to associations by whom they are issued. The association is supplied on credit with coupons issued by the Cen- tral Committee and these have to be accounted for. The associa- tion overprints its coupons with its own serial number. Members get a coupon for_each 6d. and place the coupon on a card. When the card is full it is exchanged for one of the certificates already pur- chased by the combined subscriptions of the members. As full cards of coupons come in they are sent to the Central Office in reduction of the association's liability for those supplied on credit. (At a later date the coupons were issued to the associations in the standing imprest system.) This scheme involved little or no ordi- nary book-keeping. A register of the issue of certificates was kept. The only clerical work involved of necessity was the keeping of a careful stock of the coupons. The scheme was adopted on a large scale and by some of the largest associations. As a general rule, local committees handled the distribution of the coupons in their districts. This threw a heavy burden on the local secretaries. Con- siderable difficulty was experienced in many instances in clearing coupon stock accounts, and the distribution of coupons on an enor- mous scale threw a large amount of work on the head office. The scheme is gradually being replaced by a more simple system of cards and sayings stamps procurable from any post-office.
Scheme 6 is a. special scheme under which employers purchase certificates in advance for employees with their own funds. The certificates are purchased in blank, that is to say, unregistered, and sold to" the employees by any form of instalment system pre- ferred. The employer in effect makes a free grant to his employees of the interest accruing on the money between the date of purchase and the date of sale.
Scheme 7 is a development of an earlier system under which the Post Office issued cards upon which 31 ordinary sixpenny postage stamps could be affixed by anyone. A card when filled with stamps was exchangeable at any money order office for a War Savings certificate. There was no advantage from cooperation. It was merely a simple device to enable people to save the money for a certificate by instalments of 6d. each.
When the Armistice was signed the National Committee gave careful consideration to devise some alternative scheme to avoid the heavy clerical labour entailed in the working of Schemes 2A, 28, 3 and 5. This labour had been obtainable during the war on a voluntary basis and it is possible that the very labour itself indirectly assisted the movement in its early days in that it gave the officials of associations the knowledge that they were doing something definite for the benefit of the country in wartime. In 1918, the Post Office agreed to the issue of a distinctive adhesive war savings stamp with the Britannia head design. This stamp was placed on sale at all post-offices. Special savings cards containing 31 spaces were issued to savings associations. Treasurers and secretaries of asso- ciations provided themselves with stocks of the stamps, which they were authorized to procure as credit stocks, and they issued these to their members for cash. With the cash they purchased more stamps. The cards when filled were exchangeable for certificates at any money order office, and savings stamps purchased at any post-office or through any agency could be used. The scheme possessed consider- able elasticity, as it enabled members of one association on trans- ferring their residence to join another association and complete their subscriptions, or they could fill their cards with stamps pur- chased anywhere and exchange them for certificates anywhere. The disadvantage lay in the absence of the benefit of the early dating of certificates which was given by the other schemes an advantage which, it was found in practice, was so generally appreciated that the new scheme, in spite of the saving of labour to the officials of asso- ciations, was not widely adopted. After considerable thought the scheme was revised and early in 1921 a system was introduced which, while maintaining the simplicity of Scheme 7, also gave the benefit of the early dating of certificates. The predating of certifi- cates is secured by the use of date labels. The date labels (printed in pairs) are supplied by the National Savings Committee to the association officials. Whenever the official purchases Britannia head savings stamps, he can present at the post-office one pair of these date labels for every 31 sixpenny stamps purchased. The post-office official stamps the labels with a date stamp of that day. When a member of the association presents a card filled up with savings stamps all of which have been purchased from the associa- tion, the secretary affixes to the certificate which is issued in exchange for the card one of the officially dated date labels one date label is affixed to the signature portion of the certificate and its fellow or counterpart is fixed on the counterpart of the certificate in the cer- tificate book. This scheme therefore preserves the full benefit of early dating due to cooperative purchase and yet reduces the clerical work of the association official to the smallest compass. The only book which it is thought advisable for the official to keep is a con- trol receipt book for acknowledging receipt of members' completed cards given in exchange for certificates, this serving also as a register of certificates, in case the member loses his certificate book.
The value of savings stamps sold to Nov. 30 1920 was 1,739,000, of which approximately 1,464,000 had been exchanged for savings certificates.
Municipal Savings Banks. The Municipal Savings Bank (War Loan Investment) Act, 1916, authorized the establishment, subject to certain restrictions, of municipal savings banks in municipal boroughs with populations exceeding 250,000. The only municipality to adopt this Act was Birmingham, where a bank was started at the end of Sept. 1916. The " Birmingham Corporation Act, 1919 " extended the powers of the Corporation and authorized it to establish a savings and housing bank.
Navy, Army and Air Services. Although military savings banks and facilities for saving in the army had existed since 1859, with the recruiting of large numbers of civilians for the new armies it was found that the normal methods of saving were insufficient to attract very large sums of money.
On the issue of the 4^% War Loan in June 1915 it was felt right that due facilities should be afforded the men in the army for making their investments through the Post Office issue of the Loan. Arrangements were accordingly made for any soldier whose pay account was sufficiently in credit to invest by instal- ments of 55., ios., i or 5, the amount being debited to his account and transferred to the Post Office through the regi- mental paymaster. Similar arrangements were made for the navy and the scheme was found to work so smoothly that it was eventually extended to Exchequer bonds and War Savings certificates as they became available, and ultimately for deposits
