The rapid extension of the Money Order system, and the creation in every town and in almost every village of a post office where business other than that of the receipt and despatch of correspondence was conducted, suggested to Mr. C. W. Sikes, a bank official of Huddersfield, that here was the organisation for the purpose. He wrote in 1860 an open letter to Mr. Gladstone, who was at the time Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which he pointed out that there were eighteen counties and 2000 towns without a Savings Bank of any kind. He directed Mr. Gladstone's attention to the success of the Money Order system, and he urged him to use the same medium for savings, “for thereby you bring the Savings Bank within less than an hour's walk of the fireside of every working man in the Kingdom.” The appeal was successful. Mr. Gladstone with characteristic enthusiasm adopted the plan, and carried a Bill through Parliament to give effect to the proposals. On the 16th September 1861 Post Office Saving Banks were opened in 300 towns, and from that date onwards the story has been one of continued progress. According to the Postmaster-General's report of 1910 the number of Post Office Savings Bank accounts, excluding those which experience has shown are dormant, was 7,913,295, and the amount of money standing to the credit of depositors was £164,596,065. The average amount of each deposit was £2, 7s. 9d. Here, therefore, we have a People's Bank actually established in our midst, and the best excuse of the improvident no longer exists. During the fifty years of its existence, remarkable developments have taken place in the working of the Post Office Savings Bank. The facilities for the public have been increased enormously, so much so that the old idea of a bank existing simply for the encouragement of thrift has been considerably modified. The ease with which withdrawals can now be made, and the extension in the limits of money which may be deposited annually, have provided the man or woman of small means with most of the advantages to be obtained from the possession of a current account at a private or joint-stock bank. And he obtains one additional advantage, in that on any sum from £1 upwards he obtains 2½ per cent. interest. These increased facilities are looked upon with disfavour by those who consider that the slight difficulties which were for many years placed in the way of those who wished to withdraw money, were created in the interests of the depositors themselves.