"The difficulties are very serious, chiefly in connexion with the question of interest and the mode of account for it.
"At the same time there is so much of promise in the plan on the face of it, that we are unwilling to let it drop without a most careful examination.
“If you are likely to be in London, or were disposed to come hither, personal communication on details might be of advantage. Sir A. Spearman would be most ready to see you for the purpose of entering into them fully, and I should be very desirous myself to give any aid in my power at the proper time.”
[165] "The Council of the Statistical Society of Dublin having had under their consideration the plan of Post Office Savings Banks proposed by Mr. C. W. Sikes of Huddersfield, desire to record their entire approval of the principles of his plan, and consider it to be specially applicable to Ireland, where a well-founded feeling of distrust in Savings Banks as now constituted has been produced by its being demonstrated that the depositors have not Government security for their money. That the Council believe that Post Office Savings Banks with perfect Government security would be very successful in Ireland, and could be readily managed with a central Savings Bank in Dublin, as Government Stock is transferable in the Bank of Ireland. That the Council direct the Secretary to bring these resolutions under the consideration of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, with a view to their being transmitted by him to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. By order,
“W. Neilson Hancock.”
At the same meeting the Council elected Mr. Sikes a Corresponding Member of the Society.
[166] Forms for doing so were immediately afterwards provided.
[167] Such, for example, as the extraordinary facilities now enjoyed for the depositing and withdrawal of money—of which we shall speak in the proper place. Suffice it to say here, that these facilities had never been dreamt of for a moment outside the Post Office; that they were such facilities as no agency but the post-office ever attempted to give, and, more than that, could not possibly have given.
[168] His speech on the occasion has not been reported verbatim, or we would never have ventured to have given it in the third person.
[169] Hansard, vol. clxi. p. 262; and Times newspaper, 1861.