The example set by Dr. Duncan was followed in many towns and districts in England and Scotland. In every instance the model of the Ruthwell parish bank was followed; and the self-sustaining principle was adopted. The savings banks thus instituted, were not eleemosynary institutions, nor dependent upon anybody's charity or patronage; but their success rested entirely with the depositors themselves. They encouraged the industrious classes to rely upon their own resources, to exercise forethought and economy in the conduct of life, to cherish self-respect and self-dependence, and to provide for their comfort and maintenance in old age, by the careful use of the products of their industry, instead of having to rely for aid upon the thankless dole of a begrudged poor-rate.
The establishment of savings banks with these objects, at length began to be recognized as a matter of national concern; and in 1817 an Act was passed which served to increase their number and extend their usefulness. Various measures have since been adopted with the object of increasing their efficiency and security. But notwithstanding the great good which these institutions have accomplished, it is still obvious that the better-paid classes of workpeople avail themselves of them to only a very limited extent. A very small portion of the four hundred millions estimated to be annually earned by the working classes finds its way to the savings bank, while at least twenty times the amount is spent annually at the beershop and the public-house.
It is not the highly-paid class of working men and women who invest money in the savings banks; but those who earn comparatively moderate incomes. Thus the most numerous class of depositors in the Manchester and Salford Savings Bank is that of domestic servants. After them rank clerks, shopmen, porters, and miners. Only about a third part of the deposits belong to the operatives, artizans, and mechanics. It is the same in manufacturing districts generally. A few years since, it was found that of the numerous female depositors at Dundee, only one was a factory worker: the rest were for the most part servants.
There is another fact that is remarkable. The habit of saving does not so much prevail in those counties where wages are the highest, as in those counties where wages are the lowest. Previous to the era of Post Office Savings Banks, the inhabitants of Wilts and Dorset—where wages are about the lowest in England—deposited more money in the savings banks, per head of the population, than they did in Lancashire and Yorkshire, where wages are about the highest in England. Taking Yorkshire itself, and dividing it into manufacturing and agricultural,—the manufacturing inhabitants of the West Riding of York invested about twenty-five shillings per head of the population in the savings banks; whilst the agricultural population of the East Riding invested about three times that amount.
Private soldiers are paid much less wages per week than the lowest-paid workmen, and yet they put more money in the savings banks than workmen who are paid from thirty to forty shillings a week. Soldiers are generally supposed to be a particularly thoughtless class. Indeed, they are sometimes held up to odium as reckless and dissolute; but the Military Savings Bank Returns refute the vilification, and prove that the British soldier is as sober, well-disciplined, and frugal, as we already know him to be brave. Most people forget that the soldier must be obedient, sober, and honest. If he is a drunkard, he is punished; if he is dishonest, he is drummed out of the regiment.
Wonderful is the magic of Drill! Drill means discipline, training, education. The first drill of every people is military. It has been the first education of nations. The duty of obedience is thus taught on a large scale,—submission to authority; united action under a common head. These soldiers,—who are ready to march steadily against vollied fire, against belching cannon, up fortress heights, or to beat their heads against bristling bayonets, as they did at Badajos,—were once tailors, shoemakers, mechanics, delvers, weavers, and ploughmen; with mouths gaping, shoulders stooping, feet straggling, arms and hands like great fins hanging by their sides; but now their gait is firm and martial, their figures are erect, and they march along, to the sound of music, with a tread that makes the earth shake. Such is the wonderful power of drill.
Nations, as they become civilized, adopt other methods of discipline. The drill becomes industrial. Conquest and destruction give place to production in many forms. And what trophies Industry has won, what skill has it exercised, what labours has it performed! Every industrial process is performed by drilled bands of artizans. Go into Yorkshire and Lancashire, and you will find armies of drilled labourers at work, where the discipline is perfect, and the results, as regards the amount of manufactured productions turned out of hand, are prodigious.
On efficient drilling and discipline, men's success as individuals, and as societies entirely depends. The most self-dependent man is under discipline,—and the more perfect the discipline, the more complete his condition. A man must drill his desires, and keep them under subjection,—he must obey the word of command, otherwise he is the sport of passion and impulse. The religions man's life is full of discipline and self-restraint. The man of business is entirely subject to system and rule. The happiest home is that where the discipline is the most perfect, and yet where it is the least felt. We at length become subject to it as to a law of Nature, and while it binds us firmly, yet we feel it not. The force of Habit is but the force of Drill.
One dare scarcely hint, in these days, at the necessity for compulsory conscription; and yet, were the people at large compelled to pass through the discipline of the army, the country would be stronger, the people would be soberer, and thrift would become much more habitual than it is at present.
Military savings banks were first suggested by Paymaster Fairfowl in 1816; and about ten years later the question was again raised by Colonel Oglander, of the 26th Foot (Cameronians). The subject was brought under the notice of the late Duke of Wellington, and negatived; the Duke making the following memorandum on the subject: "There is nothing that I know of to prevent a soldier, equally with others of His Majesty's subjects, from investing his money in savings banks. If there be any impediment, it should be taken away; but I doubt the expediency of going further."