hirty-one 12-cent
stamps, and when filled up is handed in to the Secretary and a War
Savings Certificate is received.

The financial advantage to the members of forming an Association is
quite easy to understand. Every week the takings are invested by the
Secretary (using a special slip given by the National Committee) in
War Savings Certificates, so that when members finish subscribing
for a certificate, instead of getting one dated the day they finished
paying for it, as it would be if they saved by themselves, the
Secretary has a store of earlier dated certificates on hand, and the
member receives one of these.

This works out quite fairly if one rule is observed--never give any
one a Certificate dated earlier than the first week they started
paying for it.

The people of England needed a great deal of education in war saving.
We had to fight the strongly held conviction that of all sins the most
despicable is "meanness," and that too much saving may seem mean.

No Englishman will ever really admit he has any money, and he was
inclined to question your right to talk about the possibility of his
having some--and your right to tell him what to do with it, supposing
he had any. Some of them were a little suspicious that it was the
workers we were talking to most--it was not--and some of them were not
quite sure they wanted their employers to know how much they saved.
That is entirely obviated by the men running their own associations.
Other people told you the people in their District never did,
could, or would save and were spending their big wages in the most
extravagant way--that pianos and fur coats appealed far more than
war savings certificates. The official people in the towns when we
approached them about conferences said much the same in some cases,
but, yes, of course, you could come and have a conference and the
Mayor would preside and you could try. And you did, and in six months
they had dozens of associations and thousands of members and had sold
some thousands of certificates. We sell about one and a half million
certificates a week and have sold about 140 millions since March,
1916. The appeal that won them was not only the practical appeal of
the value of the money after the war for themselves, to buy a house,
to provide for old age, to educate the children. The strongest appeal
was the patriotic one. Save your money to save your country. Throw
your silver bullets at the enemy. We have not been con