Again a machine was needed, and once more as in the case of the food campaign one was well oiled and accessible.  It was the organisation that had raised, by eloquent word and equally stimulating poster and pamphlet, the great volunteer army of 3,000,000 men.  Just as it had drawn soldiers to the fighting colours, so did it now seek to lure the savings of the people to the financial standard of the nation.

The Parliamentary Recruiting Committee became the Parliamentary War Savings Committee and it loosed a campaign of exploitation such as England had never seen before.  From newspapers, bill boards and rostrums was hurled the injunction to buy the War Loan and help mould the Silver Bullet that would crush the Germans.  It was literally a “popular loan” in that the five shilling short-term vouchers, bought at the post office, and which paid 5 per cent, could be exchanged when they had grown to five pounds for a share of long-term War Stock paying 41/2 per cent.  The higher rate of interest was the inducement to begin saving and it worked like a charm.

Tribute to the efficacy of this programme is the fact that more than 1,000,000 English workers purchased the War Loan.  Through this procedure they learned, what most of them did not know before, that when you put money out to work it earns more money.  It meant that they had become investors and were starting on the road to independence.

But this campaign, admirable as it was in scope and execution, failed in its larger purpose of reaching the great mass of the people.  While more than 1,000,000 workers participated in the loan their holdings really comprised but a small percentage of the immense total.  The bulk of the buying was by banks, corporations, trustees, and wealthy individuals.  The message, therefore, of permanent thrift combined with a more or less continuous investment opportunity for every man still had to be delivered.  All the while the Empire hungered for money as well as for men.

Such was the state of affairs when the Chancellor of the Exchequer appointed the Committee on War Loans for the Small Investor.  It had two definite functions:  to raise funds for the national defence and to provide through the medium selected some simple and accessible means for the employment of the average man’s money.

This Committee recommended that an issue be made of Five Per Cent Exchequer Bonds in denominations of five, twenty and fifty pounds to be sold at all post offices.  It was an excellent idea and was immediately authorised by the Treasury.  The Exchequer Bond became part of the swelling flood of British war securities and might have had a distinction all its own but for the enterprise and sagacity of one man who happened to be a member of this Committee.