A few days afterwards the _Chancellor of the Exchequer_ proposed the fourth clause of the defeated bill, or that which gave the Commissioners an uniform power of holding and dealing with all stocks under Parliamentary guarantee, and stocks and securities, under whatever name, that constituted the National Debt. At present, Mr. Gladstone stated the Commissioners had power to hold Terminable Annuities, but no power to sell them. There ought to be a uniformity of power with regard to these securities, and this bill, which was founded on the fourth clause, gave it. He had only been induced to take the matter up again by finding an unanimous feeling in the House for this proposition. _Mr. Estcourt_, in speaking for the clause, hoped the Chancellor would soon bring in a measure on the general subject. So he did, soon afterwards, but not the kind of measure Mr. Estcourt desiderated. When this bill reached the Lords, it was rather violently opposed by Lords Monteagle and Redesdale; and on a division the voting was found to be equal. According to usage, the bill was thrown out. The Government, however, re-introduced the measure, "as a matter of urgency;" and though there was an outcry in the Lords against it, no less than in the Commons, for interference with what was considered a Money Bill, the clause passed, and received the Royal Assent on the last day of Parliament. Mr. Gladstone, thwarted in all his attempts, except in the last insignificant case, to bring about a better state of things in connexion with the management of Savings Banks, determined upon another course of action altogether. He, and other statesmen who had preceded him in his office, had tried their best to improve the existing banks, but they had been persistently hindered and obstructed by the force which Savings Bank officials could bring to bear. For some time now Mr. Gladstone must have had under his eye several proposals which went to the very root of the matter upon which so many difficulties had from time to time arisen, and which promised a thorough and substantial reform. He bent his great energies in this direction; saw his way, not only out of a dilemma, but to the origination of a simpler and more perfect system; and may be said henceforth to have left the friends and partisans of the old Savings Banks to look after their own interests. With the legislation relative to the scheme of Post Office Savings Banks, with which Mr. Gladstone's name will always be prominently associated, we shall deal in a special chapter, and will therefore hasten to describe the remaining steps which the Legislature has taken with regard to Savings Banks proper up to the present time.