THE PEOPLE'S SAVINGS.

Northern Advocate, 30 January 1922, Page 4

THE PEOPLE'S SAVINGS.

The returns of the Post Office Savings Bunk for the year ended on December SI last are published in Wellington newspapers, *uul from them we learn that for the first 'time in 2S years the figures .show an excess of •withdrawalsover deposits for the year. This is striking evidence of the financial condition of the Dominion and the need for retrenchment. The returns show that the deposits during last year totalled £.".0,640,112 and the withdrawals £30,070,038. This means that £327,52(5 more money was withdrawn than was paid in. How marked the change is may be gathered from the fact that in no year since 1015 litis the excess of deposits over withdrawals fallen below £2,400,000, and in 1910 it touched the unprecedented figure of £3,790,000. For a parallel to the position revealed by last year's figures, one has to go back to the early nineties and the eighties. The bright side of the picture is <thiit the public has a very considerable nest egg stored away in the Savings Bank, amounting to no less than £43,000,000, os compared with less than half that sum in 10.14. This means an average dcpo?it of about £40 pet' head of population, or, if the average household is taken as consisting of five persons, about £200 per family, as against about £100 per family when the war 'began. The figures therefore show that if the country is .meeting hard times now there has been a thrifty putting by of a good deal of .the easy money of the past few years that should stand it in good steed.