The idea, however, seems to have occurred to the Duke, that the proposal to facilitate the saving of money by private soldiers might be turned to account in the way of a reduction in the army expenditure, and he characteristically added: "Has a soldier more pay than he requires? If he has, it should be lowered, not to those now in the service, but to those enlisted hereafter." No one, however, could allege that the pay of the private soldier was excessive, and it was not likely that any proposal to lower it would be entertained.
The subject of savings banks for the army was allowed to rest for a time, but by the assistance of Sir James McGregor and Lord Howick a scheme was at length approved and finally established in 1842. The result has proved satisfactory in an eminent degree, and speaks well for the character of the British soldier. It appears from a paper presented to the House of Commons some years ago,—giving the details of the savings effected by the respective corps,—that the men of the Royal Artillery had saved over twenty-three thousand pounds, or an average of sixteen pounds to each depositor. These savings were made out of a daily pay of one and threepence and a penny for beer-money, or equal to about nine and sixpence a week, subject to sundry deductions for extra clothing. Again, the men of the Royal Engineers—mostly drawn from the skilled mechanical class—had saved nearly twelve thousand pounds, or an average of about twenty pounds for each depositor. The Twenty-sixth regiment of the line (Cameronians), whose pay was a shilling a day and a penny for beer, saved over four thousand pounds. Two hundred and fifty men of the first battalion, or one-third of the corps, were depositors in the savings bank, and their savings amounted to about seventeen pounds per man.
But this is not all. Private soldiers, out of their small earnings, are accustomed to remit considerable sums through the post office, to their poor relations at home. In one year, twenty-two thousand pounds were thus sent from Aldershot,—the average amount of each money order being twenty-one shillings and fourpence. And if men with seven shillings and seven-pence a week can do so much, what might not skilled workmen do, whose earnings amount to from two to three pounds a week?
Soldiers serving abroad during arduous campaigns have proved themselves to be equally thoughtful and provident. During the war in the Crimea, the soldiers and seamen sent home through the money order office seventy-one thousand pounds, and the army works corps thirty-five thousand pounds. More than a year before the money order system was introduced at Scutari, Miss Nightingale took charge of the soldiers' savings. She found them most willing to abridge their own comforts or indulgences, for the sake of others dear to them, as well as for their own future well-being; and she devoted an afternoon in every week to receiving and forwarding their savings to England. She remitted many thousand pounds in this manner, and it was distributed by a friend in London,—much of it to the remotest corners of Scotland and Ireland. And it afforded some evidence that the seed fell in good places (as well as of the punctuality of the post office), that of the whole number of remittances, all but one were duly acknowledged.
Again, there is not a regiment returning from India but brings home with it a store of savings. In the year 1860, after the Indian mutiny, more than twenty thousand pounds were remitted on account of invalided men sent back to England; besides which there were eight regiments which brought home balances to their credits in the regimental banks amounting to £40.499.[1] The highest was the Eighty-fourth, whose savings amounted to £9,718. The Seventy-Eighth (Ross-shire Buffs), the heroes who followed Havelock in his march on Lucknow, saved £6,480; and the gallant Thirty-second, who held Lucknow under Inglis, saved £5,263. The Eighty-sixth, the first battalion of the Tenth, and the Ninth Dragoons, all brought home an amount of savings indicative of providence and forethought, which reflected the highest honour upon them as men as well as soldiers.[2]
[Footnote 1: The sum sent home by soldiers serving in India for the benefit of friends and relatives are not included in these amounts, the remittances being made direct by the paymasters of regiments, and not through the savings banks.]
[Footnote 2: The amount of the Fund for Military Savings Banks on the 5th of January, 1876, was £338,350.]
And yet the private soldiers do not deposit all their savings in the military savings banks,—especially when they can obtain access to an ordinary savings bank. We are informed that many of the household troops stationed in London deposit their spare money in the savings banks rather than in the regimental banks; and when the question was on a recent occasion asked as to the cause, the answer given was, "I would not have my sergeant know that I was saving money." But in addition to this, the private soldier would rather that his comrades did not know that he was saving money; for the thriftless soldier, like the thriftless workman, when he has spent everything of his own, is very apt to set up a kind of right to borrow from the fund of his more thrifty comrade.
The same feeling of suspicion frequently prevents workmen depositing money in the ordinary savings bank. They do not like it to be known to their employers that they are saving money, being under the impression that it might lead to attempts to lower their wages. A working man in a town in Yorkshire, who had determined to make a deposit in the savings bank, of which his master was a director, went repeatedly to watch at the door of the bank before he could ascertain that his master was absent; and he only paid in his money, after several weeks' waiting, when ne had assured himself of this fact.
The miners at Bilston, at least such of them as put money in the savings bank, were accustomed to deposit it in other names than their own. Nor were they without reason. For some of their employers were actually opposed to the institution of savings banks,—fearing lest the workmen might apply their savings to their maintenance during a turn-out; not reflecting that they have the best guarantee of the steadiness of this class of men, in their deposits at the savings bank. Mr. Baker, Inspector of Factories, has said that "the supreme folly of a strike is shown by the fact that there is seldom or never a rich workman at the head of it."