The National tribune., 1895-01-31

and vicious cure-alls into the ears o
the people with the noise and per
sistenee of mountebanks at a County
fair. The rule is general that the les
a man knows about finance the louder
and longer be talks.
The attempt to carry into practice
the fallacious vagaries of these quack'
has reduced the Treasury to its present
unsatisfactory condition.
Without stopping to consider and char
acterize these We can begin by the state
ment that the revenues of the Govern,
ment are inadequate to Its needs, and its
income falls short of its expenditure fully
70,000,000 year. Until something is
done to increase the revenue, or until
improvement in business does this, it must
borrow money to keep going. 1t has
already borrowed Sill, 100000, which
is really exhausted, and it must have
more at once.
1t does not seem TO have occurred to
anybody that inconceivably the best way
to get what ready money the Government
needs, and bridge over the period of
necessity, is to pass the Postal Savings
Bank Bill. In addition to the many
conspicuous merits of this measure, it
has now the strong recommendation OF
being the best possible provision for the
emergency. The people want the Postal
Savings Banks. They have been most
successfully tried in other countries, and
without exception have resulted in great
and general benefits. Their institution
in this country would at once bring into
them hundreds of millions of dollars Of
the peoples savings, which would be inn
mediately available, or large portion
Of them, for the Governments pur-
poses
There are now approximately 10000
postoffices in the United States. If the
deposits in these should average 81 900
each, which is moderate estimate-for
it is only 81 head for each patron of
the ofice-it would aggregate S70,000,-
600, or as much as the Government
would need for a year The deposits
would probably greatly exceed this
amount, for the novelty Of the institu-
ton would attract great army of de-
positors who have heretofore never pa
tronized any bank. If the Government
paid the same interest on time deposits
as it does on IFS bonds per cent.-it
would still further highten the attract
iyeness of the institution to people with
a little money in hand.
The great reservoirs of capital in
this country-and In England and
France-are not the banks and capital
lists as most people suppose, but the ac-
cumulated savings Of the wage-workers.
Last year-bad as it was on wage
wOrkers-they still had the enormous
amount of 81, 747, 1866, 1851, or more
money than all the gold and silyer that
has been coined and paper money in
circulation.
This isa dominant, an overwhelming
fact that the blatherers about finance
constantly overlook. Much the great
est bulk of the money and property of
this country is, where it ought TO be, in
the hands of the common people, those
who have earned it by the labor of their
hands For example, the State of New
York had in 1890 q population of
{, 999,853. There are more recently
arrived foreigners than anywhere else,
but in 1894 there were 1,586,155 de-
positors in the savings banks of the
one-fourth the population, and
they had on deposit t6l7,0S9,449, or
an average of $4,000 apiece.
The bankers and so-called capitalists
are the men who skilfully use this great
fund so as to make small dividend for
the depositors, and large one for them
selves.
Now, why shall not the Government
avail itself of these accumulated savings
either by Postal Savings Banks or small
bonds, and pay the depositors the inter-
est directly, instead of giving a share to
the bankers?