ENGLAND’S SAVINGS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXL, Issue 20283, 5 December 1935, Page 14

ENGLAND’S SAVINGS

POST OFFICE BANKINGS There is a man in England who has ten million customers, and who has £350,000,000 of their money in his keeping. The man who has his finger on the pulse of the nation is the controller of the Post Office Savings Bank, the custodian of the savings of one In four of the working classes of the country. The tremendous extent to which this institution has grown would certainly stagger the British statesman, Mr Gladstone, were he alive to-day. It was he who, showing his faith in the thrift of the working classes, in 1861 established a “poor man’s bank” in every city, town and village in the country. An average of 120,000 transactions, representing probably more than £400,000 In small sums, are put through daily, and it is the proud boast of the department that all business is completed the same day, and the accounts balanced to a penny. On the walls of his office the controller has graphs which reflect the material health of England as accurately as a doctor’s diagnosis. On these graphs every social change, periods of extravagance or depression, and even life and death are instantly reflected. When times are bad there may not be a run on the bank, but deposits fall off. and nest-eggs begin to dwindle. An increase in the birthrate is shown in the rise in accounts opened for newborn babies. Similarly, if an epidemic ravages some part of the country it is immediately seen by the department dealing with the deceased depositors’ accounts. However, the downward turn of the curve of the graph does not always mean bad times are at hand. Holidays have the same effect, for there is a sagging in the savings every time John Citizen decides to take his family off to the seashore or the hills