Again and again the question was asked and argued, whether it was meant that the new banks should be subversive or auxiliary to the old. To this question, which was asked on this occasion, Mr. Gladstone gave it as his opinion that the one class of depositors who preferred perfect security would patronize the new banks; whilst another class who wished to act under the immediate view of their local superiors, would prefer the existing banks. In reply to Mr. Briscoe, he said he would not limit the establishment of the new banks to those places where no other sort of banks existed,--though, of course, the Post Office would commence operations there first. Such an arrangement would exclude the great centres of trade and population,--our large towns--which were not sufficiently served with banks. An important discussion took place on the 10th clause of the Act relating to the investment of the fund deposited in the Post Office Banks. _Sir H. Willoughby_, as he so often did before, condemned the system of operating on the Stock-market with this money. Mr. Gladstone replied, that the loss which was so often dwelt upon in connexion with the old banks was nothing like loss; "the money so deposited with Government had enabled successive administrations to effect an economy in the management of the public money transcending ten times over the charge the State had been put to." He saw no reason whatever to alter the arrangements in this particular. The amendment which Sir H. Willoughby proposed was then negatived without a division. Three days afterwards the bill passed the third reading and was sent up to the Lords.