Early in February, 1828, _Mr. Joseph Hume_--who had not then been many years in Parliament, but who had already commenced that course of conduct in connexion with the public expenditure which, at first, gained him little but ridicule and derision, and subsequently the respect of friend and foe and the confidence of the entire nation--took up the question of Savings Banks, or more especially that part of it which related to the question of expense to the Government. Mr. Hume had already asked for returns of the progress of Savings Banks; but on the 6th of this month he required the production of an account, showing the amount of interest that had been allowed to them since they had become connected with the State in 1817. He tried to disabuse the mind of the members of the House as to his having any prejudice against Savings Banks. He told how he had been one of the earliest friends of these institutions and heartily wished well to them. When he found, however, that they had already cost the country half a million sterling, and were likely to cost still more as their numbers and efficiency increased, he thought it was high time to have the matter inquired into, and this expenditure stopped. Mr. Hume said that his original notion about Savings Banks,--which was likewise that of all he knew who had endeavoured to establish them,--was that each bank might, and therefore ought to maintain itself, and, whilst it enabled the poor to invest safely their 10_l._ or 20_l._ as cheaply and as profitably as the rich could their larger amounts, it should neither be a burthen on the charity of the benevolent nor an incubus on the State. Mr. Hume stated that he believed it would be found that up to January, 1827, the amount paid to Trustees, over and above what the money remitted to the National Debt Commissioners had produced, was 452,000_l._ By the arrangement of the Act of 1817, which ordered that a separate account should be kept of the moneys deposited with Government on behalf of Savings Banks, he was enabled to tell exactly how affairs stood. He found that Government had obtained interest on the Savings Bank Fund to the extent, in round numbers, of 2,250,000_l._ and had paid to depositors for the same 2,703,000_l._ Hence the loss[36] above given, which he had no doubt by the time the accounts were finally made up for the financial year ending in March would be half a million sterling. Mr. Hume went on to state that, if honourable members thought it proper after an inquiry to pay 40,000_l._ or 50,000_l._ a year, as a means of encouraging these banks, let them do so; perhaps he would not make any more appeals about it; at any rate, however, in this case, and if this state of things continued, he thought it would be only fair that Government, and not separate directors, should have the management and control of these banks. There was no possible uniformity among them; some paid one rate of interest, and some another; some charged much higher for