It was argued that postal savings banks would have an undue advantage over private institutions because of the great confidence in the Government entertained by working people; and it was asserted that funds would be withdrawn from existing banks and deposited in the postal savings banks.... In reply, the advocates of postal savings banks claimed that existing banks had nothing to fear from governmental competition; that they had the advantages of an established clientele, higher interest rates, higher limits, if any, in the amounts that could be kept on deposit, and of the close personal and advisory relation which so often exists between a bank and its customers. They further argued that postal savings banks would be a help rather than a hindrance to other banks. They would educate the people to habits of thrift and would draw money out of hoards; and the deposits which they received would for the most part be transferred to other banks as soon as the limit fixed for postal savings banks deposits should be reached, or even before, as the depositor began to appreciate the safety of other banks and the advantage of their higher rate of interest.... The immediate occasion of the last active movement for a postal savings bank system in the United States was ... the losses and inconveniences arising from bank failures and from the suspension of cash payments in the panic of 1907. Naturally, therefore, the demand for great safety of savings deposits played an important part in the discussion. The advocates of postal savings banks cited figures showing the number of national bank failures and the losses involved, and similar figures for savings bank failures in certain states. They made much of the large amounts involved and of the hardships in individual cases. On the other hand, the opponents of the postal savings bank scheme quite generally dealt with percentage figures rather than with absolute amounts and showed that for recent years the average losses, in terms of percentage of the amounts on deposit, were almost infinitesimal. The figures cited for bank failures, so far as they relate to savings deposits, are so incomplete as to be of doubtful value in measuring the extent of the losses.... After all, such figures give us no adequate measure for losses of this kind. "Among the experiences of working people none is more demoralizing and few are more cruel than loss of savings through failure of banks or absconding of individuals intrusted with funds." To such people there is cold comfort in the assurance that the average loss of savings bank depositors over a long period of years is but a fraction of a mill on a dollar. The loss is theirs: it is not distributed among all depositors.