[94] In a long petition to the House of Commons from the Trustees and Managers of the St. Martin's Place Savings Bank, this bill is strongly opposed, thus showing that Mr. Gladstone had not succeeded with the managers of that institution. Speaking of the direct Government guarantee proposed to be given, the managers say that they "find the proposed change fettered with such a variety of intricate and cumbersome official regulations, as cannot fail in practice to prove greatly annoying and vexatious to depositors, and perplexing to the managers of the banks and their officers, upon whom will still devolve duties and responsibilities ill-defined under the provisions of this bill, and not capable of being sufficiently understood or explained; subversive, as the proposed change will also prove, in this and many other well-regulated Savings Banks, of those systems of entry and check under which their present accuracy of accounts is so admirably and indisputably maintained." They objected to the reduction in the rate of interest, treated of several other minor matters, and again prayed that a full inquiry should be made by a committee before any bill was passed. [95] "You take the money of these depositors, and you give them the entire security of the State for their money. They cannot have a better security; and if you give them that, they have no interest in the employment of the money: it does not signify to them if you fling it to the bottom of the sea. So long as the Treasury of the country is sound, it does not matter one rush what the Chancellor of the Exchequer does with the money. If he invests it well, they are no richer; and if he plays all the tricks of the mountebank, or disposes of it with the artifice of the swindler, they are none the poorer. The depositor in Savings Banks have nothing to do with the question, and it is only weakening and impairing their position to make them depend upon the prudence of the minister, instead of upon the credit of the British public." Savings Bank managers held a strong opinion against what they called jobbing with their funds. They said Mr. Goulburn had promised that the practice should be stopped; and it was, in 1844; but that Mr. Gladstone had revived the practice illegally in 1853. These bills were not introduced in 1855. [96] _Hansard_, vol. cxxxvi. 1854. [97] _Hansard_, vol. cxliv, p. 1292. [98] A clause was added to the bill now introduced to prohibit the assumption of the title of "Savings Banks," by institutions not established under the Savings Bank Acts. [99] A few days after this, Sir George Lewis gave a pledge to Viscount Goderich that, if the bill passed, the Committee should be appointed to consider every question that Sir H. Willoughby had raised.