[74] It was during the passage of this bill that the managers and trustees of the different Savings Banks in the country first combined to influence the action of the Legislature. On this occasion it can be shown that they made their influence felt, and provoked several divisions in both Houses. With the House of Lords they were most successful, owing, no doubt, to the great number of peers who were honorary officers of Savings Banks. For example, in the House of Commons they succeeded in dividing the House twice on the question of the rate of interest. They wished no reduction to be made in that rate; but, when it was decided that the rate should be reduced, amendments making it 3_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ to trustees and 3_l._ 0_s._ 0_d._ to depositors, and 3_l._ 5_s._ 0_d._ and 2_l._ 18_s._ 4_d._ were proposed against the Government plan, eventually carried, of 3_l._ 5_s._ 0_d._ and 3_l._ 0_s._ 10_d._ respectively. It was declared that the difference of 4_s._ 2_d._ only would not defray the cost of management. It was objected also, and not without reason, that the Government erred in not naming the exact sum, instead not more than 3_l._ 0_s._ 10_d._ per cent. which should be given to depositors; that this was a matter which ought not to have been left in any sense to the trustees. Much unpleasantness might have been saved if the sum had been definitely stated, and instead of twenty or thirty different rates of interest, all had been paid alike, and there had not been left any doubt as to what depositors should consider their right in the matter. Out of doors there was a regular combination; deputations waited upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and gentlemen from all the leading Savings Banks in England, Scotland, and Ireland, met in London to concert those schemes of defence to which we have just alluded. A meeting was held, at the important institution in St. Martin's place, with Sir Henry Willoughby as Chairman, when the following resolutions, among many others, were agreed to by the deputies from banks representing 5,000,000_l._ of deposits. Nothing could of course better show how the action of the Legislature was regarded by the managers of the institutions in question:-- 1. "That the proposed reductions in the amount of deposits from 30_l._ to 20_l._ in each year, and the total amount of deposits from 150_l._ to 120_l._ will be highly injurious to the interests of the depositors."