The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-23 00:00:00

POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS.

In two years, from Sept. 16, 1861, to Sept. 15, 1863, the
Post-office banks have received £3,733,885 in 1,208,938 se-
parate deposits, and they have repaid £1,088,544 in 226,245
separate sums. They have opened accounts for 324,355 de-
positors; on September 15, 1863, the accounts of 266,857
of those depositors remained open in the books of the
Post-office, and the total sum due to those depositors
was on that day £2,648,340. The establishment of
Post-office savings banks has not resulted in a mere
transfer of business from one public institution to another.
It has resulted in a marked increase of business, and in a
large addition to the number of those prudent and frugal
persons who seek the security of the State for the safe cus-
tody and prompt repayment of their savings. In the ten
years ending on Nov. 20, 1861—that is, in ten years prior
to the establishment of Post-office savings banks—there
had been an annual average increase at the rate of 3 4-sths
per cent. in the total number of savings -bank depositors in
the United Kingdom. In the year ending Nov. 20, 1862
—that is, in the year following the establishment of Post-
office savings banks—the increase in the number of depo-
sitors throughout the kingdom (taking the depositors in
Post-office banks together with the depositors in old banks)
was at the rate of 6I per cent. Throughout the whole
kingdom the old banks lost 55,000 and the Post-office
banks gained 160,000 depositors. In the first place the
Post-office banks are nearer to the depositors than it was
possible for the old banks to be. Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Dublin, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Bristol,
had each a well- managed and thoroughly reliable savings
bank; but in towns of such magnitude the distance of the
savings bank from the homes of a large part of the popula-
tion must frequently have weakened the resolution of the
prudent, and furnished the imprudent with a fresh excuse
for improvidence. The Post-office has opened five banks in
Edinburgh, five in Glasgow, twelve in Dublin, ten in Liver-
pool, sixteen in Manchester, ten in Birmingham, and seven
in Bristol, and the result has proved that the accommoda-
tion which has been given was urgently required. In the
county of Middlesex, before the establishment of Post-office
savings banks, there was an appearance of abundant savings
bank accommodation. It that county there were 41 old
prosperous and well-managed savings banks, which seemed
to hold out all needful inducements to prudence and fruga-
lity. The Post-office has opened more than 200 banks in
Middlesex, and there was in the year following the estab-
lishment of those banks, a clear addition of 30,000 persons
to the total number of depositors—which increase was at the
rate of 10 per cent., as compared with an increase of only 2i
per cent, in previous years. Another marked advantage of
the Post-office banks, and one which has been largely ap-
preciated, is this—that a depositor in any Post-office savings
bank may continue his deposits or obtain repayment of his
money at that bank, or at any other of the 3,000 banks in
the United Kingdom, without change of book or breaking of
account. This advantage, which could not be conferred by
any but a central institution, such as the Post-office, is largely
used, both by those whose occupations compel them to move
frequently from place to place, and by those who travel for
pleasure. The tourist, the commercial traveller, the mechanic
who moves from town to town in. search of employment, the
reapers and haymakers who, at the proper season dock into
the large agricultural districts; the nurses who go down
from the London hospitals to tend the sick in various parts
of the country; the travelling showman, and the strolling
player—all these avail themselves freely of the peculiar faci-
lities thus afforded by the Post-office banks. In the techni-
cal language of the Post-office banks, deposits and with-
drawals which are made at another bank than that at which
the depositor first opened his account are called cross de-
posits and cross withdrawals, and in the two years over
which the operations of the Post-office banks have extended
there have been 51,000 cross deposits, and 41,000 cross
withdrawals. Something remains to be said of the depositors
who have been attracted to the Post-office banks by the ad-
vantages which I have described. The old savings banks
and the Post-office banks were alike established with a
view to give facilities for the deposit of small savings at in-
terest. The average amount of a single deposit in the old
banks is £4 6s sd. The average amount of a deposit in the
Post-office banks is only £3 is 9d. We must conclude,
therefore, either that the Post-office banks have reached a
poorer class of depositors than the old banks have been able
to attract, or that, by affording facilities for the more fre-
quent deposit of small sums, they have increased the in-
ducements to frugality and removed some of the tempta-
tions to wastefulness. In either case it mast be allowed
that the object for which all savings banks were established
has been most fully and completely attained by the Post-
office banks, and that those banks have supplied an accom-
modation which tha poorer classes of the country had ur-
gently required.—From a Paper read at the Meeting of the
Social Science Association by Frank Ives Scndamore, Re-
ceiver and Accountant-General, General Post-office.