An Appendix is added, giving the Acts, or clear abstracts of Acts, at present in force for all the different descriptions of Banks for Savings, together with some of the latest statistical information which may be thought of value.
W. L.
London, May 24, 1886.
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*** Two questions connected more or less with my subject have been brought into prominence by the action of Parliament since the present work was completed, and to these questions it may not unreasonably be expected that I should in some way refer. The first, or the Savings Bank qualification in the new Reform Bill, concerns Savings Banks and Savings Bank depositors very intimately; the second question, or the proposal of Mr. Gladstone to employ a portion of the money of Savings Banks in reducing the National Debt, can scarcely be said to have an immediate bearing upon either.
With regard to the Savings Bank qualification, I may, perhaps, be permitted to say that, though received with hostility in some quarters and indifference in others, the balance appears to me to be in favour of the proposal. In most respects, if not in all, the qualification may be defended on the same grounds as the Forty Shilling Freeholds; the investment is about the same; the one is open to much the same objections as the other, and there are similar merits in each. Votes may be manufactured under the one equally as under the other, and it is not easy to understand why those who support the one “Bye Franchise” should oppose the other. Little trouble will accrue to Savings Banks under the Act; and the money forming the qualification may oftentimes be allowed to remain in the bank, whereas under other circumstances it might be squandered in unnecessary or unprofitable expenditure. The distinction may be hard on others quite as worthy of the franchise, but who may be in some way unfortunately circumstanced; and it may seem arbitrary to those who have an equal amount invested in some other shape: but these are the sort of arguments which may be brought against Fancy Franchises of any kind with quite as much reason as against this particular one. Working men who may claim the Franchise on the Savings Bank qualification will not be able to keep the fact secret that they are depositors, and that up to a certain amount; and they must submit, on misfortune overtaking them, to be deprived of a privilege which they may have learnt to prize: but, notwithstanding all these and some other minor considerations, I cannot help regarding the Clause as, on the whole, a fair and reasonable acknowledgment of the merits and claims of many of the best portions of the community, who were not influenced by the consideration of this electoral qualification when they originally commenced the practice of provident habits, and also of the claims of others who may not be unduly influenced by the prospect of citizenship which the Clause may henceforth hold out to them.
Mr. Gladstone's recent proposal to convert the 24,000,000l. of Consols, invested by the nation in Savings Banks, into Terminable Annuities concerns the Nation itself much more than Savings Banks. So far, indeed, as the matter affects the trustees of Savings Banks, or depositors in them, it was settled some years ago when the money was made a book debt, and the Government became the banker, as it were, for the sum in question. What the Government now does with the money is no concern of Savings Banks. This is put so plainly by Mr. Gladstone in his Budget speech, and is at the same time so indubitable, that to quote his words is to say all that can be said on this point. “They (the trustees) have nothing to do with the money; that is a mere question of investing it with which we are alone concerned. If we lost every farthing of it, we should have to pay it to them; and if we made a profitable investment of it, it would be entirely our own affair.” In one respect only is Mr. Gladstone's proposal specially satisfactory to Savings Bank officials and all who take an interest in Savings Banks. Under the operations described by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Financial Statement, and now familiar to every reader, the Balance estimated to be deficient, of over three millions sterling—a deficiency which has long been a bugbear in all considerations of the subject—will disappear as a separate item in the National Accounts in the process of redemption proposed. The entire scheme shows, especially and prominently, Mr. Gladstone's anxiety to reduce our enormous burden of debt. He here voluntarily proposes to cripple himself in no small degree in the matter of his resources. Should his proposals become law—and it is sincerely to be hoped they will—the process must go on, even when he or his successors may require to raise money at an obvious disadvantage; but if he be satisfied to throw the burden equally on years of prosperity and adversity, surely this is a matter on which the public generally should feel no fear.
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CHAPTER I.