The growth of deposit-banking in Great Britain, therefore, advances with enormous strides, while in Continental countries it makes very little headway. The disturbed condition of the country in France, owing to wars, leads the thrifty to hoard instead of depositing their savings. But in the United States the same growth is seen as among the English. The net deposits of the national banks of the United States in 1871 were $636,000,000, but in 1883 they had increased more than 83 per cent to $1,168,000,000. Deposit accounts are the rule even with small tradesmen; and the savings-banks of Massachusetts alone show deposits in 1882-1883 of $241,311,362, and those of New York of $412,147,213. The United States also escapes from the heavy taxation which in Europe is imposed to maintain an extravagant army and navy chest. The effect of institutions, moreover, in stimulating the growth of material prosperity is far more true of the United States than of England, for the barriers raised against the movement from lower to higher social classes in the latter country are non-existent here, and consequently there is more stimulus toward acquiring the means of bettering a man’s social condition. The geographical causes which have made industry rather than war the natural source of power and importance to Great Britain [and the United States] have turned an unusual proportion of the most enterprising and energetic characters into the direction of manufactures and commerce; into supplying their wants and gratifying their ambition by producing and saving, rather than by appropriating what has been produced and saved. Much also depended on the better political institutions of this country, which, by the scope they have allowed to individual freedom of action, have encouraged personal activity and self-reliance, while, by the liberty they confer of association and combination, they facilitate industrial enterprise on a large scale. The same institutions, in another of their aspects, give a most direct and potent stimulus to the desire of acquiring wealth. The earlier decline of feudalism [in England] having removed or much weakened invidious distinctions between the originally trading classes and those who had been accustomed to despise them, and a polity having grown up which made wealth the real source of political influence, its acquisition was invested with a factitious value independent of its intrinsic utility. And, inasmuch as to be rich without industry has always hitherto constituted a step in the social scale above those who are rich by means of industry, it becomes the object of ambition to save not merely as much as will afford a large income while in business, but enough to retire from business and live in affluence on realized gains.