Nor were those who were much nearer these banks, i.e. the denizens of our large towns, much better circumstanced. Of the existing establishments in 1861 there was a large proportion of them open for so short a time, and at such inconvenient hours, as practically to make them closed banks to our working population. That they did little business is not to be wondered at; though we think our readers must be astonished to know that of the entire number of Savings Banks much more than half of them only received, on the average, a dozen deposits a week! Astonishing as this is, all wonder may well cease when it is found that of the whole 638 Savings Banks of the United Kingdom only twenty were open daily, while 355 were open once a week, and fifty-four but once a fortnight, and ten but once a month! Of the remainder a considerable number were open two and three times a week, and the rest did business at various periods. Investigating the matter a little more closely still, we find that, in 1861, fifty Savings Banks were open but four hours monthly; 124 were open only one hour each week; and 150 open but two hours per week. In England the 498 banks were open in the aggregate 1,988 hours a week, giving an average of about four hours per week for each bank, or, if we leave the metropolitan banks out of the consideration, an average of about two hours and a half per week. Further, taking three English counties, solely chosen on account of their alphabetical order, Bedfordshire, with five Savings Banks, had seventeen and a half hours per week of Saving Bank accommodation; Berkshire, with ten banks, had only twenty-one hours; and Buckinghamshire, with six banks, but an aggregate of eight hours each week, during which its population could resort to the banks with their savings. After these facts, let no one wonder that the odd savings of the poor burnt holes in their pockets, and led them to resort to the “house of call” open within a stone's-throw almost at all hours.
A statement was made before the Committee of 1858, that twenty-five out of every hundred persons properly designated as of the industrial classes were debarred from saving their money, even if inclined to do so, from the want of convenient places of deposit; and the reader may, we think, with the help of the above statistics, judge whether that statement was at all an exaggerated one. “Is nothing to be said of the inherent disposition of so many of the poorer classes to spend their money, and the utter repugnance they feel to habits of frugality?” says a doubting reader. Certainly. But how do the facts bear on this matter? Let us take the returns of the four different counties already alluded to as containing relatively the largest and the smallest number of Savings Banks. In Berkshire, for every thousand persons an amount equal to 2,479l. was accumulated in 1856; in Dorsetshire the amount was 2,550l.: on the other hand, in Lancashire, which we described as most insufficiently served with banks, the amount per thousand persons was only 1,562l., and in the West Riding of Yorkshire but 1,266l. But we will take the case of a single bank to show that the want of facilities was a most important element in the want of progress; and to make the fact still plainer, we will go to Lancashire itself. The Manchester Savings Bank has for long been one of the best managed institutions in the kingdom, whilst elsewhere there had been, as we have seen, the slowest growth, if not complete stagnation in Savings Banks generally. The depositors in the Manchester bank were nearly quadrupled in the twenty years now under consideration, and no better test is required that these depositors were of the right sort than the fact that, in 1860, 200,000l. lodged at Manchester belonged to persons who could not even sign their names.[140] These facts did not fail to strike the members of the Committee of 1858, and Mr. J. Hope Nield, the eminent actuary of the Manchester Savings Bank, was asked how he accounted for the fact of this bank advancing so much more rapidly than any other. Mr. Nield succinctly replied, “Only from the constantly increasing facilities which it has been our constant endeavour to give.” Mr. Nield afterwards explained the facilities to which he referred. In many banks, depositors had only a very short time for business, and then perhaps they were restricted to one kind of business for one day, another kind of business for another day. In the Manchester bank depositors could go and do any kind of business whenever it was open. There lay the distinction between “free” banks, and what were known as banks on the “restrictive principle.” In a restrictive principle bank, of which there were an enormous number, withdrawals were made on one day, deposits on another; new accounts could only be opened on a certain day, additions could only be made to accounts on another certain day. Then there was the notice to be given for withdrawing money. The more “free” the bank, the less notice: generally a week was required; more often a fortnight was wanted; in many cases a month's notice had to be given. “Whenever,” said Mr. Nield, “a free bank could be pitted against one on the restrictive principle, the increase in the number of depositors in the former case would be found to be four or five times as much as in the latter.” This was shown in a clear light by a striking illustration—also a somewhat amusing one: “Up to 1847,” said Mr. Nield, “the late Venerable Archdeacon Brooks, of Liverpool, would insist to the day of his death upon paying everything himself in the Liverpool Savings Bank, and, as a consequence, the bank was only open two days a month for the repayment of money. Deposits were completely stationary there for many years, and cases were known where persons went to the Manchester bank to open an account there, and remitted money by post.”
Whilst speaking of the Committee of 1858, we may here give the opinion on this point of another gentleman, of whose career as an ardent and laborious Savings Bank reformer we shall presently speak. Referring to the absence of what he considered reasonable facilities in Savings Banks, Mr. Charles William Sikes, of Huddersfield, expressed his decided conviction that the present system “was inadequate to meet the wants and wishes of the working classes of this country.” When asked (2,715) if he had made any calculation as to the extent to which the savings of the working classes might reasonably be expected to amount if the Savings Banks were thoroughly popular with them and were felt to be perfectly safe, Mr. Sikes answered: “I think that if a knowledge of Savings Banks becomes widely diffused (and the process is going on), and if the reorganization of them receives the confidence of the country, the average annual deposit, which now amounts to seven millions, is so small a proportion of the aggregate income of the working classes of this country, that instead of being, as it had been, stationary, with scarcely a fluctuation of two per cent. for twenty years, there will be a probable increase in the course of three or four years, or perhaps a longer time than that, of two, three, or five millions of money;—in other words, that the annual deposit, instead of being seven millions, will get to eight, nine, or eleven millions, in ten years. The income of the working classes is fully 200 millions a year, and, with anything like provident and sensible habits, thirty millions a year might be deposited in Savings Banks.”
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And now that we have at considerable length described the defects and inequalities of the Savings Bank system, we cannot perhaps do better than offer some account, first, of different banks of a supplemental character which have been started within recent years, and afterwards speak of some of the various proposals made, out of Parliament, to render the general system more efficient.
For many years prior to their actual establishment it was felt by those best conversant with the habits and feelings of our British soldiers, that the Savings Bank institution did not meet their wants and requirements, and that supplementary banks were needed. This project was frequently urged,[141] and in 1842 Lord Hill gave his consent to the plan of Military Savings Banks proposed by Sir James McGregor and approved by Lord Howick, the then Secretary-at-War. An Act of Parliament was obtained (5 and 6 Vict. c. 71), and immediately afterwards the authorities at the different barracks commenced operations, under regulations made by the Secretary for War. In 1847 this Act was amended. In 1849 the Regimental Benefit Societies were dissolved, and incorporated with the Military Savings Banks by a new Act; and in 1859 the whole of the Acts relating to the Savings Banks of the soldiers were consolidated into one (22 and 23 Vict. c. 20). The amount which any one in the service can deposit is unlimited, though interest is not allowed on any excess over 30l. in one year, except in the case of gratuities given for good conduct. When the sum of 200l. is reached, no further interest is paid. The interest allowed must not exceed 3l. 15s. per cent. The whole of the money raised in Regimental Savings Banks is remitted to the War Secretary, who holds an account with the National Debt Commissioners, which is kept separately from other Savings Bank accounts, being entitled “The Fund for the Military Savings Banks.” Returns of all transactions made in these banks are laid annually before Parliament. The Returns almost from their commencement have been most satisfactory, and produce sufficient evidence that these supplementary banks were required. The total amount up to this time (1865), standing to the credit of our soldiers in Military Banks alone, exceeds the sum of a quarter of a million sterling, and amounts on the average to nearly 20l. for each depositor. This sum, however, though large and eminently satisfactory, as indicative of providence and forethought among a class which cannot be called highly paid, does not represent the whole of their savings. It is well known that many go beyond their barracks to deposit such sums as they can spare, acting on the feeling, which may be well understood, that it is not always advisable that the authorities should know the extent of their savings.
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What was done for soldiers in 1842 was accomplished for seamen, another class whose interests everybody cares for, in 1854. The Act 19 and 20 Vict. c. 41, regulates Seamen's Savings Banks, established at all our principal seaports under the direction of the Board of Trade. According to this Act the Board of Trade has power to constitute any shipping office established under the Merchants' Shipping Act (1854) a branch bank under its control, and to require any shipping master belonging to that office to act as agent. The money invested in these banks is paid through the Board of Trade to the National Debt Office; and interest similar to that given by the ordinary Savings Banks is paid to those who so invest their money. As in ordinary Savings Bank management, the expenses incurred in carrying on the business through the Board of Trade (a department of which is constituted as a sort of central bank) and the shipping offices are paid by the surplus interest obtained from Government, with whom the funds are invested. As in the case of Military Banks, an annual account must be rendered to both Houses of Parliament of all transactions; but we are sorry to say that these transactions have never been large. Some forty thousand pounds represent the entire capital of the Supplementary Seamen's Banks.[142] All who know what Jack is ashore—and who does not?—will wonder little at this result; he is universally pointed to as an embodiment of Improvidence itself: but when it is known that the machinery in question is applicable to married sailors, their wives and families, the picture of want of thrift and inclination to save presents several deplorable aspects.
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Still more useful and interesting has been the Penny Bank movement, and some account, which must necessarily be brief, will not be out of place here. Before the year 1850, there seem to have been at least four Penny Banks established with a view to attract a poorer class of depositors, or it might be a younger class, than the existing Savings Banks had reached; and, as “stepping-stones to greater things,” Penny Banks succeeded admirably from the very first. The first bank was started, with this very laudable object, in Greenock, in 1857, by a Mr. Scott of that town. The Greenock Savings Bank having, like all the other Savings Banks, restricted the amount which could be received to a shilling, and very few of them receiving that amount pleasantly, Mr. Scott thought that the very poor had no safe place in which to deposit their little surplus earnings. Poor people were often enough urged to “take care of the pence, and the pounds would take care of themselves;” but little had been done to help them to care for their pennies, which proverbially and very quickly burnt holes in their pockets when they were compelled to keep them in their own possession. A bank for such sums was started in this town; and to show how much it was needed, and how ready the poor were to avail themselves of advantages when they were placed within their reach, we have only to state that 5,000 depositors in the first year of the existence of the Greenock Penny Bank, placed the sum of 1,580l. in it.