ON THE DEFICIENCIES OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM, AND THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF SUPPLEMENTARY SAVINGS BANKS.
“Were greater facilities provided for saving, and greater encouragement given by the intelligent classes to the formation of provident habits, we believe the habit of economy would spring up in many quarters where at present it is altogether unknown. The working man, though he may not like to be patronised, likes to be helped; and those who help to provide him with convenient places in which to deposit his spare earnings, will not fail to be regarded by him as among his best friends.”—Mr. S. Smiles.
In the fourth chapter we endeavoured to trace the progress of Savings Banks up to the year 1841, or after they had had a legalized existence of twenty-five years. We there tried to show that, for some years prior to that period, a manifest improvement had set in, and was rapidly proceeding, in all that related to the social condition of those classes for whose benefit such institutions as Savings Banks are mainly intended; and we think we succeeded in proving that the progress of these banks was commensurate with the gradual national advancement. Except in the years marked by financial or political embarrassment, the number of Savings Banks increased in a fair and regular proportion each year; and not only so, but the first table we gave [(page 91)] showed conclusively that the amounts deposited increased in the different years in the same proportion. We would now take up the statistics where we left them, and present the reader with a continuation of the same, in a slightly different form.
TABLE 4.[134]
Showing the amount of Deposits and Withdrawals, and the Capital, of Savings Banks, at the end of each year from 1841 to 1861 inclusive.
| Year ending 20th Nov. | Deposits. £ | Withdrawals. £ | Capital of Savings Banks in the United Kingdom. £ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1841 | 5,694,908 | 5,487,723 | 24,536,971 |
| 1842 | 5,789,203 | 5,656,160 | 25,406,642 |
| 1843 | 6,327,125 | 5,333,015 | 27,244,266 |
| 1844 | 7,166,465 | 5,716,275 | 29,653,180 |
| 1845 | 7,153,176 | 6,697,042 | 30,950,983 |
| 1846 | 7,300,367 | 7,255,654 | 31,851,238 |
| 1847 | 6,649,008 | 9,060,075 | 30,236,632 |
| 1848 | 5,862,742 | 8,653,108 | 28,114,136 |
| 1849 | 6,196,883 | 6,522,760 | 28,537,010 |
| 1850 | 6,363,690 | 6,760,328 | 28,930,982 |
| 1851 | 6,782,059 | 6,305,566 | 30,277,654 |
| 1852 | 7,281,177 | 6,684,906 | 31,754,261 |
| 1853 | 7,653,520 | 7,116,330 | 33,362,260 |
| 1854 | 7,400,141 | 7,956,347 | 33,736,080 |
| 1855 | 7,188,211 | 7,654,133 | 34,263,135 |
| 1856 | 7,741,453 | 8,023,583 | 34,946,012 |
| 1857 | 7,581,415 | 8,375,095 | 35,145,567 |
| 1858 | 7,901,925 | 7,839,903 | 36,220,362 |
| 1859 | 9,021,907 | 7,335,349 | 38,995,876 |
| 1860 | 9,478,585 | 8,258,421 | 41,258,368 |
| 1861 | 8,764,870 | 9,621,539 | 41,546,475 |
From the above table, many important facts may be gathered. Speaking of the yearly proceeds, in 1847, 1848, 1849, and 1850, the withdrawals of money exceeded the deposits by amounts respectively of 2,411,067l., 2,790,366l., 325,877l., and 396,638l. This extraordinary state of things is partly accounted for by the panic which set in about this time among Savings Bank depositors, owing to the discovery of numerous frauds, and, as a matter of course, the knowledge of the divided and defective responsibility under which the system was worked; but more especially was it owing to the commercial crisis of 1847-8. In the three following years, 1851-2-3, the crisis quite over, and a general examination of Savings Bank accounts tending to reassure the public mind, the deposits again gained their natural ascendency, when, in 1854-5-6-7, the excess paid was at least equal to the excess received in the three previous years. There can be little doubt but that this result again was owing in some measure to the Crimean war, and the scarcity of money during the period, but principally to the agitation which generally prevailed among depositors at the constant failures in the Legislature when attempts were made to place Savings Banks on a proper footing; these failures leading to repeated petitions for a Select Committee to go over the whole subject. In 1858 there was a slight improvement; in 1859 a considerable increase in the deposits, clearly the result of the investigations of the Select Committee of the previous year, which Committee, though it had done little towards a final settlement, had certainly dispelled a cloud of misapprehensions that had gathered round the concerns of Savings Banks. That improvement continued, though in a less degree, in 1860; when the Returns for 1861 show another large decrease of deposits and an increase of withdrawals, which we would not be wrong were we to attribute to the frequent discussions in Parliament, and in the country, relative to a new system of Government Banks.
Having to some extent accounted for the variations observable in the above table, let us proceed to compare the progress made during the period of twenty years now under consideration with that shown during the previous quarter of a century and described in a previous chapter. Between the years 1825 and 1835 the increase in the aggregate amount of deposits in the Savings Banks of the United Kingdom was at the rate of exactly fifty per cent. Between the years 1835 and 1845, the returns show an increase in deposits in this decennial period of ninety-eight per cent. Comparing the returns for 1845 and 1855, the progress made, if indeed progress is the right word to use here, was at the rate of only five per cent.
Were we to take the first five years of this last decennial period, we should find that there had absolutely been a decrease in the business of Savings Banks to the extent of twelve per cent., but this unsatisfactory result admits, as we have just shown, of partial explanation. To continue our survey, however, up to the latest period, viz. including the Returns for 1864, we find that the deposits for 1854 amounted to 7,400,141l., and the deposits for 1864 to 8,174,679l., showing an increase during ten of the most prosperous years this country has known since the establishment of Savings Banks at the rate of only about eight per cent.
It is almost unnecessary to say that as regards all the material elements of prosperity the progress of the country between 1841 and 1861 was most marked. Taking England and Wales only, we find the amount deposited in Savings Banks in 1841 was 4,440,379l.; in 1861, the amount deposited was 7,188,034l. Now the population of England and Wales was in 1841 15,929,000; in 1861 it was 20,119,496. The declared value of our exports was in 1841, 51,545,116l.; in 1861 it had increased to the enormous sum of 125,102,814l., and last year (1865) it stood at over 165 millions sterling. What the increase in the amount paid as wages was likely to be, we leave our readers to estimate from these sums. In nothing is the national prosperity more manifest than in the relative number of paupers in receipt of relief. Though the population increased during the twenty-two years in question several millions, the total number receiving in and out-door relief, was, in 1849 (this being the first year the return was made) 934,419; in 1861, the number was 890,423, or an actual decrease of forty-four thousand persons. Such statistics as the above might be multiplied indefinitely, especially those relating to the wonderful progress of the Money Order Office at the Post-Office, but it may suffice just to make a reference to the increase of wages during the period.[135] Mr. David Chadwick, an eminent authority in Lancashire, states that between 1840 and 1860 the wages of the operatives employed in the different departments of the cotton trade had increased from 12 to 28 per cent.; in the silk trade the increase had been 10 per cent. In the building trade the increase throughout the country had averaged from 10 to 30 per cent.; in the iron trade from 8 to 20 per cent. It would scarcely, therefore, be too much to say that within the period, and up to 1861, while the price of most kinds of food had decreased, the wage for almost every description of labour had increased in at least an equal proportion.