SEAMEN'S SAVINGS BANKS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4172, 2 July 1875, Page 3

SEAMEN'S SAVINGS BANKS.

(From Mitchell's Maritime ReijistKr, April 30th.) There is no Parliamentary return which we regard with greater interest than that which appears periodically, relating to Sea men's Savings Banks and Money Orders. It affords, so far as it goes, an indication of the extent to which habits of forethought and frugality prevail in the merchant service, and to what extent the earnings of our merchant seamen are preserved to themselves and their families by the simple expedient of taking advantage of the facilities afforded for depositing or remitting the money. Our readers _are aware that by the Mechant Shipping Act, 1854, the Board of Trade is authorised (section 177) to provide facilities for remitting the wages and other moneys of seamen and ;'.pj>; entices to their relatives and othei.s lij; !;ic:)us of inuitpy orders issued by shipping i/ia-stera ; and by section 178 there is a further authority given to the Board t

cause the amount of a money order to be paid to the person in whose favour it is made, or to his personal representatives, legatees, or next of kin, notwithstanding that tho order may not be in his or their possession. This is followed by an authority to the JSational Debt Commissioners to establish Savings Banks for the receipt of deposits not exceeding £150 on the whole, in respect of any one account from or op account of seamen, or their wives and families. By the Merchant Shipping Amendment Aoi, 1855, these provisions have been extended to all seamen, and their wives and families, whether the men belong to the Navy, or the Merchant, or any other service ; and this enactment was followed by the Seamen's Sayings Bank Act, 1856 (19 and 20 Viet., e/41), under the provisions of which these institutions are at present managed. On the 20th November last, the date to which the Savings Banks' accounts were made up by the Commissioners, there was a balance due to 2463 seamen depositors, of the sum of £86,667 12s 9d, with surplus interest amounting to £.3448 8s 3d. The amount aotually depisited in the Banks during the year was £45,064 9s 10J, of which £8498 was deposited in the Temporary Bank at the Mercantile Marina Office, at Liverpool. This is satisfactory, showing (because it is evidence) th*t the experience of nearly 20 years has taught our seamen the value of keeping their savings together ; and although the number of depositors, considering the number of British seamen in the mercantile marine, is not large, the amount which stands to their credit in the Banks is considerable, and a jiroof that the system has worked, f.nd continues to work well, within certain limits. The facilities afforded seamen for the transmission of their earnings by means of money orders were established at the same time as the Savings Banks, but appear to have been turned to a much more extensive account. Thus during the past year the number of seamen's money orders issued in the ports of the United Kingdom *-as 57,806, representing a sum of £329,508 93 Bd. Early in 1865, as our readers will remember, the seamen's money order system having succeeded' very well in the United Kingdom it was determined to extend it to foreign ports through the British Consulates, and a commencement was made at the port of Havre Since then the system his been extended to no less than forty-two foreign ports —: thirty-one in Europe, eight in America, two in China, and one at Mndeira. The largest number of money orders is still issued from the Consulate of Havre; then comes Antwerp, then Rotterdam, Dunkirk, and Bremcrhavtn. The total number of theae' foreign money orders issued in the year 1874 was 3002, and the total amount was £41,858 12s sd, making a total of (!0,808 orders, representing the sum of £371,367 2s issued in the twelve months ending 31st December. 1874. There are probably not more than 250,000 seamen in the merchant service. There are not nearly that number whose homes are in the Uuited Kingdom. The returns before us show that upwards of 60,000 of these men have, wherever their voyages terminated, remitted to their families substantial portions of their wages, and that some thousands more seamen at home have availed themselves of the Saving Bank in order to keep the r earnings together. We are glad to be abJe to cite the authority of a parliamentary return for a statement such as this at a time when the deterioration of our merchant seamen has come to be accepted as a fact, and is pointed to as a leading cause of our maritime disasters. Without contesting the allega tion that our seamen, as a class, are not what they were, we have always contended that there is still a larr>e number of really good men in the merchant service and a large percentage of that element which hap done so much for the country, and on which we may still rely whether in peace or war. We now find that, at a moderato calculation, one fourth of the British seamen in the merchant service, instend of spending their earnings as they receive them in profligacy and debauchery, place those earnings, or a large proportion of them, in the safe keeping of Savings Banks, or remit the money home to their friends-. There cannot surely be a better indication of that dispositiion to prudence and self-denial —just the feeling by which our seamen are never supposed to be actuated—than is supplied by this return. We cannot, of course, shut our eyes to passing events, and to the multiplied instances of insubordination and other misconduct of seamen, supplied too frequently by our columns; but we say that notwithstanding there is a strong leaven of self-respect and self reliance amongst our merchant seamen, and that their qualities may be and ought to be noticed and encouraged. At all events the return before us tells annually a tale which is creditable to the seamen of the merchant service, and must be eminently satisfactory to the projectors of the law which affords to these men the opportunity of preserving their hard earnings to themselves and their families.