SAVINGS BANK.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXV, Issue 3041, 3 September 1870, Page 9

SAVINGS BANK.

On Wednesday evening, Mr Stevens, as Chairman of the Select Committee on the condition of Savings Banks, succeeded in getting the House to adopt the report made by them on the 11th instant, a copy of which has already appeared in our columns. The House has therefore come to the determination that all banks existing under the " Savings Bank Act, 1858"' shall be compukorily closed This appears at first sight an arbitrary and uncalled for streich of power. Why, it may be argued, abolish Savings Banks which arc well conducted, in which the public have every confidence, and to which many of the best of our citizens give their valuable services gratuitously ? A. little reflection will, however serve to show that there can be no valid objection to the change. The parties interested — the depositors, the trustees, and the bank officers— are equally without agrievance. The depositors will have exactly the same security, that is, the General Government security, which they liow enjoy, while at the same time the Government by having the management of the Bank in officers immediately under their own supervision, will have a much greater security against fraud or irregularity than they can command at present. The security is, therefore, by the proposed change, really greater than ever — indeed, it is complete and absolute. Under the_ present system any diminution of the capital of a Savings Bank, any defalcations of managers or trustees, ha\e to be made good by the General Government. Under the new system these incidents cannot take place. No greater security is therefore possible or conceivable. But it is when we come to consider the peculiar advantages of a Post Office Savings Bank that vre see at once its superiority to any other. Open every day, and all day, it contrasts favorably with a Savings Bank open two hours on two evenings in the week. The provident rustic, on every occasion he hns to go to the Post Office, can deposit his little savings without being required us at present to wait till evening, when, perhaps, they may have become " small by degrees and beautifully less." Blythe Jenny, in posting her" every letter to her far-off swain, can deposit her little quota, and hasten on the happy day which, with the aid of a draft on the Savings Bank, will make her happiness complete. Then when we think of the changes to which the industrious classes in a colony like ours are liable, the superiority of the Post Office Savings Bank still further appears. Should a depression take place, and compel the investor to withdraw a portion of his savings for his pressing need, he has no fortnightly notice to give, but Biinply to go to the nearest Post Office and obtain as much as he requires. Should the chances of bettering his fortune lure him away to a distant part of the colony, he has only to present himself and sign a paper at whatever Post Office should happen to be most convenient to have his account transferred. The facilities arising from the fact that the Bank from which he draws his money is the very channel through which he can transmit it by letter or telegram to any part of the colony, are too evident to require any comment. Tho trustees cannot complain if they are relieved of an office occupying a good deal of their time, and involving a certain amount of responsibility, which neither directly nor indirectly ever benefited themselves. True it is " the labor wo delight in physics pain," but they must be consoled with the graceful compliment paid them by the Committee, that they are to have the sole power, if they choose, of determining the charitable or educational purposes to which any surplus in hand is to be applied. Nor are the Bank officers forgotten. The report provides that in ascertaining the surplus the "compensation duo to any officers for loss of office" shall have first been deducted. That this subject is of great importance, the most cursory glance at the report of the Honorable the Postmaster-General, published to-day, will suffice to show. The amount deposited in the Post Office Savings Banks in the Colony fov the year 1809 was £2-10,898 os Od ; 'in 1808, the amount was £194,535 11s Od, showing an increase in deposits for 1809 of £43,282 14s 3d ; and this rate of increase is rapidly increasing. The returns for the last half-year are published in to-day's Gazette, and are in round numbers : — For the quarter ending March, £02,245 ; fov the quarter ending June, £71,100, It may be interesting also to notice the number of deposits: — For the year 1809 the number of deposits is 17,133 ; for the quarter ending March, 1870, 4782; for the quarter ending June, 1870, 5207. "We cannot bring these remarks to a close without pointing out the fact that notwithstanding all the gloomy pictures which have lately been drawn in the House, the Post Office Savings Banks returns prove incontestably that the industrious classes in this colony arc bettei off than those of any oilier country ol which we have any official returns. We cannot conceive a fairer way of arriving at a man's actual circumstances than bj stating what amount of his earnings he has been able to lay by. Wages maj nominally rise or fall, or, as in some parts of this colony, may stand still while othei things fall, and therefore actually rim while they nominally remain the same Occasional depression may exist in dif ferent places, but a country is truly rid and prosperous when it can show that ii the Post Office Savings Banks alone then has been laid aside in one year, as a re serve against the day of want, by the ad mittedly poorer classes, a sum more thai sufficient to give a pound to every man woman, and child in the country; anc when we take into account the moneys de posited in the colony in other Savings Bank, in charitable societies, in building anc investment companies, we must be agree ably surprised to find that these prophet of evil have failed to recognise at once tin

matcrinl prosperity, and the provident habits of our imfustrial classes. _ Surely when they draw comparisons betwixt this colony and Victoria, with a view to prove our greater relative indebtedness, they should also refer to the PostmasterGeneral's report to see whether the cir- ■ cumstances and habits of the classes on whom the burden of the revenue most • heavily falls in both countries, do not ; constitute an element of difference that ■ entirely upsets all their calculations. For their benefit we will quote from the report of the Post Office and Telegraph Departments for the year 1800, dated General Post Office, Melbourne, 31st March, 1870 : — " The number of new Savings Bank accounts opened during the year was 7501 ; the number closed, 3991 ; and the number remaining open on the 31st December, 1809, was 17,800. The total amount of deposits received during the year uras £233,418. In other words, £7000 more was lodged in the Savings Banks in New Zealand in 1809 than in Victoria. Had the deposits in Victoria been in the same proportion to their population as ours, the amount would have been not £230,000, but £730,000 ! It is worthy of notice that while the number of Savings Banks in this colony in 1809 was only 59, the number in Victoria was 181. The balances to the credit of depositors for the year 1809 amount, in Victoria, to £213.000, and, in New Zealand, to £231,000. 'Jims, when the population of the two colonies is taken into account, the savings of our industrial classes are as three to one of theirs. When our relative indebtedness is again referred to, we hope this important set-off will not be lost sight of. It is only necessary to add that the Post Office Savings Bank system began in Victoria in 1805, while ours only dates from 1807. We trust the system hitherto so successful will continue to receive such modifications from time to time as the public exigencies require, and afford still more satisfactory proofs of the progress and providence of our fellow-colonists, Post Office Savings Banks must sooner or later supersede all others, and we shall hail with pleasure any well considered measure framed to accomplish so desirable a result.