VOLUNTARY SAVING

73

But what a ridiculous system with wages andprices chasing one another upwards in this man-ner! No one benefited except the profiteer. Theseeds of much subsequent trouble were sown.And we ended up with a National Debt vastlygreater in terms of money than was necessaryand very ill distributed through the community.Compare this with a system of deferment of pay.A levy averaging 15 per cent would have allowedthe same relationship as before between moneywage-rates and the cost of living; so that thepressure of the former to chase the latter upwardswould have been withdrawn. The real consump-tion of the working-classes would have remainedin the aggregate exactly the same as under theinflationary system. If average earnings at theold wage-rates were 15 per cent higher thanbefore on account of fuller employment and over-time (which is approximately what happened infact), the working class standard of consumptionwould have been maintained at the pre-war levelwithout any sacrifice except the harder workaccomplished. This harder work would have beenrecompensed by the workers becoming the ownersof a significant proportion of the National Debt.For at the end of the war (to take very conser-vative figures) the money total of the NationalDebt would have been reduced by more than£2,000 million, and of this reduced total morethan £500 million would have belonged to wageand salary earners instead of to the profiteers.That is to say, dependence on the method of"voluntary" savings in the last war put some