very doors of the people.

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