SAVINGS BANK RETURNS.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 June 1934, Page 6

SAVINGS BANK RETURNS.

The figures quoted by the PostmasterGeneral in regard to the Post Office Savings Bank are distinctly encouraging. They show that while in the year ended April, 1933, the excess of withdrawals over deposits was £2,479,272, in the year which ended last month deposits exceeded withdrawals by £1,037,062. A fuller analysis than that given in the telegraphed report of the Minister’s statement would be necessary before the complete implications of the Savings Bank figures could be seen. Nevertheless the Post Office bank is generally admitted to be the repository of small savings. The figures seem to indicate, therefore, that there has been a margin between earnings and the cost of living for a great many people, during the past year, and that in itself is proof that conditions in the Dominion have improved, though all the difficulties have not been overcome. No doubt the increased deposits indicate also that the need for titrift has been inculcated more widely in the days of the depression, and that “provision for a rainy day” is now recognised as not only sound economics but that it may make the difference between weathering a financial storm or being swamped by adverse circumstance. Possibly some of the “new economists” will agree that the increase in deposits indicates that uncertainty and lack of confidence are making people less inclined to put their money into enterprises that would increase employment and benefit the Dominion generally. But as the deposits are mostly in small amounts that argument can scarcely apply with any great force. Their number and the splendid increase in the aggregate amount of the deposits entrusted to the Post Office Savings Bank is certainly an indication that the Dominion as a whole has not been converted to any experimental monetary systems whereby liabilities will allegedly disappear and with that disappearance, presumably, the need for thrift. It appears fairly obvious that the bulk of the inhabitants of New Zealand still prefer the old-fashioned methods of preparing for untoward circumstance. They are applying individually the lessons of the stressful years they have passed through in a manner that has stood the test of time and experience.