For reasons which we have adduced at great length in the last chapter, the feeling grew that a sweeping change would require to be made in the institution of Savings Banks. Supplementary banks of different kinds were established, and they met in great part the object for which they were designed; meanwhile, the great majority of Savings Banks took no steps to provide more conveniences for the public, or they were powerless to effect them.[152] When reasonable changes were resisted between 1850 and 1860, it occurred to several that agencies might be contrived to do the same work after a different fashion, and that this project should be carried out, even were the ultimate result to diminish the usefulness of most of the older banks, or gradually to set them aside. It is to proposals having the former object in view that we must now turn.
It is not a little curious that long before Savings Banks were legalized by Act of Parliament, and even before Dr. Duncan began his earnest and self-denying efforts to establish them on a safe footing, at least two different efforts were made to promote the growth of provident habits by a system of Savings Banks which should extend throughout the entire country. We refer to Jeremy Bentham's scheme of “Frugality Banks,” and Mr. Whitbread's “Poor Fund and Assurance Office.”
The plan of the former is detailed in Bentham's works; the latter scheme, partly described in an earlier portion of this volume (pages 23-4) was submitted to Parliament in 1807, and a bill,—a full Abstract of which will be found in the Appendix,—founded upon it, actually passed the House in some of its earlier stages. Some of the provisions of this bill were admirable; and some, owing to the state of the Post Office of that time, would not have been so easily worked through that department as was intended. As it was, the country preferred the class of banks just then rising into notice; and in 1817 the Legislature forgetting Mr. Whitbread's scheme, gave its sanction and countenance to the banks which had been established on purely benevolent principles, and which were totally independent of each other. In the course of years, that system having been tried in every possible way without producing the safety and convenience so much desired in institutions of this sort, the principle of a uniform plan of banks in connexion with the Post Office advocated by Mr. Whitbread again came up, the story of the proposals for and the introduction of which we are about to tell.
Previously, however, we ought not to omit, for several reasons, to give the outline of the scheme proposed by Bentham even before Mr. Whitbread's proposals. The reader will perceive how thoroughly conversant the philosopher was with the every-day habits of the poor, and how completely he understood their wants and requirements, and sought to provide for them. It is only necessary to add that Bentham advocated this plan as one of many measures of pauper management; that the scheme was to be generally applied throughout the country, and to be taken up and worked by means of a company; the place where the banks should be held to be called “'Industry Houses,' in contradistinction to the 'Public Houses' of friendly Societies.” “Should this not be enough,” says Bentham, “the vestry room of each place of worship presents an office as near, and the clerk an officer or sub-agent as suitable, as can be desired.”[153] After fully going into the hindrances to the spread of saving habits among the poor around him, and the difficulties incident to the laying up and improvement of their surplus moneys,—hindrances and difficulties which had not yet all been surmounted,—he gives the following comprehensive and exhaustive list, which shows how thoroughly he would have mastered the obstacles of a more recent period:—
"Properties to be wished for in a system of Frugality Banks, commensurate to the whole population of the self-maintaining poor: viz.
"1. Fund, solid and secure:—proof against the several causes of failure.
"2. Plan of Provision, all comprehensive: comprehensive, as far as may be, of all sorts of exigencies, and at all time, as well as of all persons, in the character of customers: thence the amount of the deposits transferable from exigency to exigency, at the will of the customer, at any time.
"3. Scale of Dealing, commensurate to the peculiar faculties of each customer: i.e. on each occasion as large as or as small as his convenience can require.
"4. Terms of Dealing sufficiently advantageous to the customer: (the more so, of course the better), regard being had, in the necessary degree to solidity.
"5. Places of transacting business suitable: adapted in point of vicinity, as well as in other respect, to the conveniency of the customer.