There were some telegraph lines constructed under the provincial governments of New Zealand prior to 1865, but nothing was done in a national way until that year. Then the General Assembly authorized the Governor to establish electric telegraphs and appoint a commissioner to manage them. Existing lines and offices were to be purchased, new lines built, and a national system developed. The commissioner made the regulations, fixed the rates, and employed operators to transmit all messages presented. Afterward the telegraphs became a part of the postal system. This naturally led to government ownership and operation of the telephone when the latter means of transmitting intelligence was introduced. It is also a part of the postal system, and as Prof. Parsons points out, “The Government is ‘hello-girl’ as well as postmaster, telegraph operator and banker.” Mr. Gladstone secured the establishment of postal savings banks in England in 1861. New Zealand adopted the idea in 1865, and since that time nearly every country in the civilized world, except the United States, has followed England’s example. The object of the New Zealand Post Office Savings Bank Act (1865) was stated to be: “To give additional facilities for the deposits of small savings at interest, and with the security of the Government behind it.” Practically all the money order offices in New Zealand (470 a few years ago) were open under the Postal Banking Law for the transaction of savings bank business, while there were but five private savings banks in the Islands. In New Zealand there is a place of bank deposit for each 1,800 people. In the United States there is one for each 7,650 people. The total deposits in all sorts of banks is $110 per head of population in the United States, $125 in Great Britain, and $140 in New Zealand. Comment seems to be unnecessary. The postal banks will not receive less than a shilling at a time, but printed forms are furnished on which stamps may be pasted, one or more at a time, until the total amounts to a shilling or more, when the slip can be deposited as cash to the amount of the stamps pasted on it. The great advantage of postal banking, and in fact all government banking, is its safety. No postal bank in any country has ever closed its door for liquidation, or experienced a run on its funds.