Before we notice the further progress of legislation in respect to Savings Banks, it would be well to refer to their progress and operation in Scotland. None of the Acts passed up to this time in any way related to the Scotch banks. When Mr. Rose's bill was before Parliament, its application to Scotland was successfully opposed; a separate bill was introduced by Mr. Douglas, the member for the Dumfries burghs, in 1818, but this did not pass. The failure to obtain this act was said to be owing exclusively to the necessity for legislative interference not being felt in Scotland; it seems now much more likely that the failure was owing to the want of unanimity among the Scotch promoters of Savings Banks, Mr. Duncan taking a decided stand with the member whom he had influenced so far as to get him to bring in a bill, and the promoters of the Edinburgh bank, on the other hand, who kept up in this way the long-standing dispute which they had always had with "the Father of Savings Banks."[32] There was certainly some reason why the same legislation was unnecessary for the two countries. There were many circumstances which rendered interference on the part of the Legislature necessary, or at least expedient, in the case of the English banks, and these circumstances scarcely in any way applied to Scotland. The chief of these were the Poor Laws, and the want of secure places of deposit for small sums to bear interest, and be payable on demand; the English bankers did not usually allow interest on money lodged with them, whereas in Scotland they gave a liberal return for it. The general dispute was at its height in 1819, when the Edinburgh Society published a report against any State interference, and when Mr. Duncan, who, as we have already said, was a strong advocate for parliamentary encouragement and protection, replied in a lengthy and able letter,[33] in which he clearly showed that difficulties and discouragements would surely be felt in the progress of Savings Banks, if they were not arranged according to law. The radical difference observable in the two classes of banks--and there were at this time 182 Savings Banks in Scotland with 7,000 depositors, and deposits to the amount of 30,000_l._--was the difference between the Parish Bank at Ruthwell, and the Savings Bank at Edinburgh, for on one or other of these models all the Scotch banks were with very few variations formed. Mr. Duncan placed, or intended to do so, the management of his bank in the hands of the whole body of depositors; the Edinburgh bank excluded all popular interference in its management, and left every one to deal with it or not, at their pleasure. The Ruthwell bank confessedly, and as we have seen, partook of the nature of a Friendly Society; the Edinburgh bank as nearly as possible approached to the character of a commercial undertaking. The founder of the former was thus an advocate for minute regulations,