ON THE DEFICIENCIES OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM, AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SUPPLEMENTARY SAVINGS BANKS 226 CHAPTER VIII. ON PROPOSALS FOR GOVERNMENT SAVINGS BANKS 269 CHAPTER IX. ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK SYSTEM 311 CHAPTER X. ON GOVERNMENT INSURANCE AND GOVERNMENT LIFE ANNUITIES 345 CHAPTER XI. CONCLUDING CHAPTER 377 APPENDIX 395 INDEX 437 HISTORY OF SAVINGS BANKS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. "Archimedes was wont to say that he would remove the world out of its place, if he had elsewhere to set his foot, and truly I believe so far that otherwise he could not do it. I am sure that so much is evident in the architecture of fortunes, in the raising of which the best art or endeavour is able to do nothing, _if it have not where to lay the first stone_."--SIR HENRY WOTTON. The habit of laying something by in a prosperous season for the wants of an adverse one is one of the very oldest customs in the world. All our laws, Divine and human, enjoin the exercise of providence and frugality as a social, and as a personal duty. These habits which are inculcated in Scripture as positive duties, and which find ample illustrations in many of the arrangements of nature and Providence, have been common in one form or other to all people in every country and in every age. In England, in almost everything relating to the social advancement of the industrial population, there has been a great and manifest improvement since the commencement of the present century. In nothing is this more true than in the incentives and appliances provided for the growth of provident habits amongst them. An old stocking, a hole in the floor, or a crevice in the wall, was formerly a sufficient bank for such of the poor as cared to save anything; but were that mode of investment unsatisfactory to some few, it was not possible to obtain better. The change which fifty years have wrought in the means for saving and investing small sums of money is remarkable. Not only have these savings assumed in consequence a variety of different forms, but they represent a sum which in the aggregate must be well calculated to astonish anyone who can remember anything of the last century. Before dealing, however, with this as our special subject, a few words may not be spent in vain in endeavouring to trace the gradual advancement made among the poorer classes, the causes that have led to the improvement in their