The Express.
London, England, 1850-05-04 00:00:00

/Ott errPrOO•

OUTGOING MAILS.
mail for Maderia, the Bra, eel tram Aral, will
up this evening.
The maGi for ,Lisbon, Bee* eat Gtheitteg will be Made
ap en the morniug MMay 7.
The smile eid Meneilles, to the Mediterranean, Igypt,
Oilers, It Bong-Hoag, &a., will be aside ep on
the smilax of Ms, 7.
The mails for British North Americo sad the Melted
States will be made up on the amine( May 10.
The West India Mails, reablikg blessis. Haveneak,
Nassau, Honduras, New Odeon, est Made% sad including
I theme ler Madeira, St. Jest dleallearagna, New Granada,
Chill, and Pen, will be iesdlewp ell the morning of May 17.
The snails for Gibraltar, Naha, Grown, the lonian Weeds,
Mope, Ceylon, India, and China, us. Boatbamptoo, will
be made up on the morning of May 20.

HlOll WARR AT LONDON SMOG&
M DAT—Mesita(. Ida Mumma. 7. IL.
f•-reaaaw—Mossise. Attenme.

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 4.

Tim intervention of Parliament in the reform and
re-construction o Savings Banks was something more
urgent and importan than people are generally
aware. There exists a deficit in the Savings Bank
fur.d, even at the present high price of Consols, of
upwards of two millions sterling.
In stating this fact—a fact well known to
the CHANCELLOR o the EXCHEQUER and others
interested in finance lit us guard the
public against unnecessary apprehension. The
fact is as we haw state it : the savings
bank fund in the hands of tie government exhibits a
large deficiency ; but the country is quite able to make
up that deficiency, and we do not eloubt that it would
be willing to do 83 were it ten times what it is. The
deficiency is not a deficiency which need alarm the
savings b ink depositor: he is safe nor are there ally
circumstances calculated at present to jeopardise his
interests. The difficulty which exists is not as be-
tween the state and the savings bank depositor, but
as between the state and the tax-paying community,
who may at any time be called upon to make up the
entire sum of money.
The first question that will probably be asked is—
how has the deficiency in the savings bank fund
arisen ? The Cum.:mum( of the EXCHEQUER told
the House of Commons, on Monday, that for many
years past the country had been paying too high a
rate of interest upon savings banks deposits, and that
they had been also considerable losers by being obliged
without reference to the price of stock, to pay back to
the depositor the full amount of which he may have
made deposit. The remedy which the CHASCELLOR
proposes is a reduction of the rate of interest per
cent., and a limitation of the maximum amount
permitted to be deposited to 1001. instead of 1501.,
as at present. We say nothing of these proposals at
this time ;we reserve criticism on them until we see
the bill. . . . . .

.—But is it true that the loss which has 'then to the
nation in respect of savings banks has arisen from
the causes stated by the Chancellor? We do
not believe a word of it. We should like
Messrs. OVEUEND, GURNEY and Co., or any other
large money-dealing house, just to answer this ques-
tion—whether, by legitimate u-e of their money,
they could not manage on the average of 20 years,
to pay 31 percent. upan any amount that might be
entrusted to them? And if private individuals can
make, as we know they do, large proti's upon mon. y
placed in their hands at certain rates of interest, why
should these who have the management of the
Savings Bank Fund incur such extraordinary
losses? Again, we find that during the 11
years, from 1617 to 1828, when 4,1. per cent.
was paid upon savings banks deposits, the loss to the
I country was proportionately less than during the 13
years from 1828 to 1813, when the nation was paying
31 per cent. Since 1814 the interest has been re-
duced to 31 per cent., and, instead of any loss, there
has been an annual gain upon savings banks in Eng-
land and Scotland. How do these facts tally wan
the assertion that the national loss on savings banks
has arisen from paying to, high a rate of interest ?
The secret of tnis deficiency is to be found, not in
the rate of interest, which is low enough, but in the
gross mismansgement of the Savings Banks Fund
under diff.ln nt Chancellors of the Exchequer. This
tact is capable of the clearest demonstration. Let us
premise that under the Savings Banks acts all deposits
in those banks have to be paid into the hands of the

"Commissioners for the Reduction of the National
Debt." At the head of that commission is the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer for the time being. Other
high officials are assm ia.ed with him, ar.d so are the
Governor and Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Eng-
land ; but the real paver is reposed in the Chancellor and
the Comptroller-General. They are the really respon-
sible par:ics for the dealings of the commissioners
with the Savings Banks Fund.
Now, it appears, that in 1828 a power was taker.
by the commtuioners to deal pretty much as they
pleased with the Savings Bank Fund; thst is to say,
Ito invest it as they thought bee, " is order to prevent
a loss to the puhlie." By a subsequent act, passed in
1833 (3 Wm. IV., c. 11), this power was very much
extended. Now, from 1829 down to 1844, the
purchases and sales ~f stock and exchequer bills under
the powers thus acquired were of a very extensive
character.

A parliamentary return shows us that there were
2,120 such transactions in Coi,s3la and 1,300 ad-
ditional dealings in Exchequer Bills. A pretty mete
the commissioners made of it, as a short detail will
show.

In the year 1829 the commi.sioners held securi-
ties, on account of the savings banks, of the value in
round numbers of 13,500,9001. C insole, in 1829,
were at an average of 86. In 1843 they averaged
96. 114 t add only. 5 per cent. tor ther increased
value and the commissioners ought to have held on
this old account nearly 16,200,000/. at the close of
1843.

Now between 1829 and 1813 there was paid to the
commissioners in cash close noon 14,000,0004 on ac-
count of the savings hanks. It has been accurately
estimated that at the mean prices of Consols for each
of the fourteen years this sum of 14,000,0001, ought
to have purchased at least 15,000,0001. worth of
stock. N at the current price of the day this
15,000,0001, would have been worth at the close of
18,13 just 14,500,0004 Add this to 16,200,00111, on
the old account, and the total is 30,700,0001., which
'wits the amount of stock the commissioners ought to
have had in hand.

But by a return presented in 1844, it appeared
that all the commi‘sior.ers possessed was 28,800,000/.,
or 1,900,0001 less than they ought to have held !
There are no means of accounting for the absence of
this money except by supposin,r the stock transac-
tions of the commissioners is have been eminently
unsuccessful. Eminently so, indeed ; for these calcu-
lations proceed at the mean price of stock for such
year. An ordinary dealer would have considered
himself unfortunate if he could not have done better
than that ; though the National Debt Commissioners
did nearly two millions worsa!
To show more plainly the charac'er of this transac-
tion, let us recapitulate the facts in the form of a
table, omitting fractions:
Value of securities held by the commissioners in
1029 L15,427.000
Add 5 per cent. tot increased value in 1813 760,000

£16,187,000
Value of 16,000,0001 Consols, which ought to
hive been purchased between 1830 end 1843. 14.491,000

L 30,678,000
Value of the securities held by the commis•
Nov. 20,1813

'28,858,000

Deficit
We see very clearly, by this statement, how to
account for the loss which has accrued to the public in
respect of savings batiks. A question arises, what
could have been the motive of the commissioners for
vesting and transferring stocks and Exchequer bills
under unfavourable circumstances ? Now mirk this :
the accounts before parliament very clearly show that
tlwse sahs and transpositions were r•mtinnalk nude
whelly irrespective ty• any demands by thrusters its
meows banks. Take one instance. In the eighteen
months between February, 1833, and July, 1834,
the commissioners sold out 2,330,0001. stock at low
prices, wi ilst they invested 6,250,0001. in Exchequer
Bills, yie Idiot( a considerably lower rate of interest !
It might be thought that the first sum w.es required
by depositors, and that the second accrued from large
and sudden payments to the commissioners. Nothing
of the sort. During the two years ending Nov., 1834
(comprising the entire period over which these teens-
actions extended), extended), the paymersts to savings banks from
the national debt office amounted to only 4087,000•.,

and the investments by savings banks, in the hands
of the sammimiosers, to 3,219,00 W. In neither in-
' Manes do tbeli sums cover one half the amount sold
out of stook, and invested in Exchequer Bills.
The solution of these otherwise incomprehensible
transactions is only, we believe, to be fund in the
ex;gencies of the Cbasoellor of the Exchequer for
the ties being. Prom 1833 to 1844 it was a con-
tinual pract!os to tamper with the savings bank fund
as the emergency of the moment rendered desirable,
either by the reduction of the amount of the unfunded
debt or some temporary relief of the stock market. The
system was nefarious. To a great extent it has been
stopped since 1814, when its existence was first pub-
licly made known ; but now we have Sir CIIARLEA
WOOD prepared to visit upon poor depositors in say-
-In4s banks all the losses which have been incurred by
so gross an abuse of the powers of an act of parlia-
ment ! _ .

It is confidently asserted by those who are best
able to make calculations in this matter, that had all
dealings in savings bank funds been strictly confined
to operations connected with those institutions, no
loss, but a considerable profit, would have accrued to
the public. This opinion is borne out by the results
which are shown to have occurred since 1844. As
was established by a correspondent in our paper of
last Monday, the British savings *lie have ren-
dered an increasing profit to the government of never
less than 30,0001. in every succeeding year. The
profit in 1848, if there had been no sale of the stock
forming savings banks capital to meet the deficiencies
in the savings banks in Ireland, would have reached
nearly 40,0001.
The space to which these observations have ex-
tended renders it impossible to enter, so fully as
we contemplated, upon a consideration of what
ought to be the principle of the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER'S bill. We shall, therefore, only say
here, that these savings banks have assumed an im•
portance and a magnitude which rendered it highly
desirable that they should be dealt wi h on a broad
and comprehensive principle. The whole course of
government procedure with regard to them ought
to undergo a change. We have been treatii.g
savings banks, hitherto, on a Glee and delusive prin-
ciple : leading the depositor to believe he posae-sed a
security which we only extended to him in idea,
never in reality. We ought to deal with savings
banks not only as national institutions, but upon the
principle of affording every possible facility to the
depositor who fairly becomes a subject for their
operation. These hanks have in them the dements
of unlimited good and illimitable extension. The
minister incurs a grave responsibility who seeks to
narrow their sphere of action, or to impede the ex-
tension of their benefits.

Upon all the details we reserve ourielvea. One
point, however, our observations will have &mon-
grated most completely. To leave the control of
savings banks in the hands of the commissioners for
the reduction of the national debt is, in effect, to
leave them in the hands of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer far the time being, who, be he who he
may, is the last person in England who ought to have
the slightest authority for meddling with them.
To any part of the bill which coolers additional
powers upon the nationel debt commissioners,
we invite, therefore, the serious attention of
the members of the legislature. The Speaker
himself, we are sure, will own that as a
National Debt Commissiorcr, he never executed
a single act in the course of his life. The Lord
Chief Baron of the Exchequer may say the same. The
Governor and Deputy-G esti roor of the Bank (repre-
sented at present by two particularly able and efficient
men) hold office only for two years. The Master of
the Itol:s is, we believe, the only remaining com-
missioner. The duties of that law office are not
very analogous to those of the CHANCELLOR of the
Exuma-Ea, and if Lord LANGDALE has recently
done some duty in the Old Jewry, it has probably
been only in consequence of Sir CHARLES WOOD 'a
long indisposiion. But we ask, without going further,
is this the sort of management to which we should all
wish the great interest of savings banks to be entirely
confided ? There will be scarcely a difference of
opinion upon this point among those who consider
the details of the subject.

A CONTEMFORARV remarks, with a taunt, that the
late movement for liberty on the contirent has had
for one of its results to add an immense increase of
strength and influence to the power of the church,
—that is, of the Roman Catholic Church. Church
and state, hierarchy and despotism, like two tall trees,
rose from year to year, side by aide, the one standing
in the other's light, perhaps, bat each cour;shing
itself upon independent roots. Now, one of
the tall trees having baen shattered and almost
rooted up, despotism has fallen for support upon the
church, which never very well able to bear its own
weight, is expected to support a double burden.
This is called a streng Bening of the catholic church.
Aus•ria, for example, had feor a century past a pecu-

her way of treating the church, which was to deny it
all influence in affairs of state, but to keep it to its
original position, that of rel.gious teachin g and example.
It took care that the church should be, what it origi-
nally was, a democratic institution, its clergy re-
cruited
from the people and sympathising with them,
not keeping its high pluces as lucrative seats fir the
aristocracy, and as patronage and alliance with the
government. Whatever was good in the Austrian
administration was precisely this, that its rule, how-
ever arbitrary, was at least lay, and the twofold and
inquisitorial tyranny, that can be wielded by
an alliance between the palace and the
confessional, was not practised in the Austrian
dominions. This indeed it was that chiefly distal-
guished the ri:gime of Lombardy from that of the
Roman and other Italian states.

Austria, however, in its habits of local government
and management, abandons its old lay system, and falls
hack to the superannuated one of the PorE and the
King of NAPLES. This is called by our contem-
porary a strengthening of the Homan catholic
church. We, on the contrary, esteem it one of
the most active causes of its weakening and
destruction. The experiment is by no means new.
The elder :BOURBONS in France made a ve•y careful
and signal trial of it. Finding their people given to
liberal ideas, and constitutional desires, Louis XVIII.
and CHARLES X. thought that the best mode of
combating and extirpating them was greatly to
augment the power of the clergy, to give education
up to them, to make them in each province the Coun-
sellers of the l'tefect, and to rule that no
promotion or favour should be Distributed, but to
those approved of by the priests. The consequence was
that the old impatience of a despotic reactionary go-
vernment was so heightened by a horror of primtly
rule, that all France rose to the cry of " Down with
the Jesuits," and, instead of the church proving a
support to the state of CitAnnEs X., it was
the odium incurred by the church that pulled down
both the state and itself. And the final result we
have seen in the fall of the monarchy.
It is certainly tempting to an administration, that
cannot help or support itself, to lean upon those great
organisations, the army and the church. When so-
ciety is broken up, these establishments alone sur-
vive, and seem to represent the strength of a nation.
They are found, after all, however, to be mere offsets
—mere forms, without life, unless animated by the same
spirit which pervades the nation, and thus acting in har-
mony with it. A clergy which speaks the sentiments
and represents the spiritual wants of a people, must
indeed be an irresistible power. But a priesthood
appointed by a despot to teach and to rule, is not a
priesthood that can give strength to a government ;
nor can an army, although in a doubtful moment it
may prefer discipline to its convictions, and put down
those it really sympathises with, be permanently
depended on.
If such an experiment failed the elder Bornnoms,
and flung them from the throne, see how
a semi-attempt to repeat it has affected
Louis NAPOLEON BONAPAICPE. Ile too coquetted
witk the church. He looked to the rungs, and their
faithful flocks, to swell hs voting list on the day of
election. He therefore felt it necessary to shape hie
policy in consequence, to place his army at the ser-
vice of the PorE, and to order it to march over the
body of the Boman republic, to a restoration of Papal
despotism and sacerdotal supremacy. What
has resulted to Louis NAPOLEON ? The utter
impossibility of hie ever reigning in France, or
ever going successfully through the ordeal of a new
'election. What has the French church gained by
being implicated with him ? U has gained a most
-nos increase of socialism.

Wo cannot conclude this review of the mode in
which foreign governments are conducting themselves
towards the church, without mentioning that the
government of Piedmont is honourably distinguishing

itself b 7 resisting and fully denouncing the
undue interference of the clergy in matters of
administration and government. This raises, no doubt,
another enemy to the constitution; but it is to he
hoped that amongst the Italian olergy there will be
found a large body who will prefer a repre,ettative,
a popular, and a free system, to that old subjugati,o
of mind and body, to the dictates of the most feeble
and palsied of the hierarchal body.
We do not deny, however, that when and wherever
a population consists of merely the two extremes,
the peasant and the lord, that there Roman catholic-
ism is at home, and likely to be pawerful and to
prosper. It is after the development and in presence
of a middle, a wealthy, and an urban class that the
system of feudal priestcraft becomes impracticable,
and is either modified or set aside. Let the middle
class of Italy itself attain their due freedom and Wk.
ence, and their quiet disgust will more effee.ually love
and dethrone Pope and cardinal* than all tie buds
of Garibaldi.

Our contemporary is mistaken altogether in Q.,
ducirg the example of Belgium. There certsinly
catholic influence makes common cause with the
people, and blends with the ideas of the middle clew.
But its power varies with the ebb and flow of popr,i4
opinion. As it joined, or inched led, the natives is
their resistance to Holland, the clergy was all-power.
ful. In a few years after, when the clergy wished to
r. sift popular progress, they were s t aside and the r
influence loot. Leer events, and the fear of fi,rinih
anarchists, have rallied once more tog..-ther the P,e:-
giant; and their clergy. But in a land of a free pr
and self-government, the clergy, like Dater
can only acquire influence by going with the stair.,,
nut resisting it.