THRIFT

Hokitika Guardian, 16 December 1933, Page 6

THRIFT

GLEANINGS FROM ABROAD.

METHODS OF SAVING MONEY

(Contributed)

The State Savings Bank of Victoria lias 1,272,000 depositors whose balances total £60,226,071. The interest paid is 2-i~ per cent.

In the United States of America one of the provisions of the recently enacted Glass-Steagall bank law requires postal depositors to give 60 days’ notice for withdrawals, thus making postal savings time instead of demand deposits. Without notice the depositor must forfeit his interest.

In Austria, with a view to giving work to the unemployed or to undertalcing local public works some communes had resorted to the expedient of issuing a so-called diminishing money (Schwund geld), a substitute for money, which possessed the peculiarity of losing its value with the passago time. The aim of the scheme was to prevent hoarding and to accelerate circulation. As this substitute has begun to spread (the first commune to adopt it was that of Worgl, in the Tyrol), and threatens to cause harm to the national currency, the Government through the medium or a. recent ordinance, lias severely prohibited its issuance.

The need of keeping one’s most valuable movable property safe, is Inherent in man, so that,' since the remotest times, lie has been in the habit of depositing it in safe places where protection was assured it against the risk of fire, theft, wars, and so on. At the beginning, therefore, valuable articles were kept particularly in religious places, namely, in pagan temples or Christian churches, according to the epoch, as being those which afforded the greatest security. But soon the operation of the safe custody ,of valuables ceased to he confined to the temples; and started to be carried on outside of them also. Already the Romans had warehouses as public places of custody. In the Middle Ages valuables were kept underground, in vaults furnished with iron-plated doors. The business of safe ’ keeping was entrusted principally to the goldsmith, for besides having his laboratory within the fortified city for business reasons, he was of necessity obliged to have safe places of deposit at his disposal. These took the form of hidden rooms, access to which was • concealed by mirrors and pictures, or of writing desks with secret compartments which can beyond all doubt be considered as the first form, in embryo, of the safe. Only during the course of the last century, have means been devised for effectively protecting valuables against fire, and not until 1870' was a material created in the shape of steel compound, capable of resisting the attacks of instruments, even the most powerful.

I The first Savings Bank in Scotland ' was established by the Bev. Henry 'Duncan in 1810 in the parish of Ruthwell in the County of Dumfries. He was born in 1774, and studied at' St. Andrew’s University. After a few years in an office, he studied for the ministry, and in 1799 he was appointed to the parish of Ruth well. Perhaps it is j not an easy matter nowadays to- imagine what were the conditions of life toI ward the decline of the eighteenth | century of a small Scottish parish of little more that eleven hundred souls—isolated, • with no industries, scanty trades, drawing its resources exclusively from agriculture, carried on then by traditional ’methods, and impoverished by the burden of taxes, where work was scarce, means of support very limited and wages meagre. in those years tile consequences of the Napoleonic Wars, aiicl the general subsequent crisis, rendered more acute by bad conditions brought on by the first industrial; transformations, had induced the Government, in order to [ meet public necessities, to increase tnx- ' es substantially, and among these the | pfoor hates were particularly heavy. Discussion was going on at that time for the abolition of this tax. which threatened to become more heavy, and and to render insupportable tile conditions of life of the labouring classes.'The Rev Air Duncan, who was amongst the staunchest supporters of the abolition, and who for some time had been thinking out concrete proposals for bringing it about, was then struck by a paper written by Mr John Bone . on the subject, entitled “Tranquility.” Among the various utopian and unreliable proposals contained in this, there was mentioned, however the idea of a Savings Bank which to Air Duncan appeared worthy of attention. The idea rapidly developed in his mind and from that time lie glimpsed the j effective contribution which the realisation of this idea might make to the improvement of the workers’ contributions.

3.n 1810, by bis pertinacity and in the midst of much difference, and a few timid consents, he set up the savings bank in his own house. The statutory regulations illustrating the ends, and the lines of functioning of the institution, published a few years afterward, constituted the fundamental plan, which, although with important alterations, later inspired the founding of the British Savings Bank. The statute laid down special rules and regulations governing the enrolment of depositors of the Savings Bank, as to whose morality and character inquiries were made beforehand. The deposits bore 4 per ceht interest, but if a depositor managed to save in three years five pounds or married the interest was increased to 5 per cent. The sum deposited the first year total-

led £157, the second year £176, and in 1814 reached the figure iof £922. The first profits went to build a school. Thus, by their own efforts, by means of the depositing of their small hard- ’ earned savings, a dignified and independent way to their material ana moral, improvement was opened ioutfor the humble classes.

j The merit of Dr Duncan, however, does not he so much in having founded this first Savings Bank, as in havintuitively perceived that this beneficient institution could be set up ; in every country, and in having defended, by tongue and pen, the social utility and the value of the happy experiment undertaken in his parish. At the end of 1816 there were seventy Savings Banks in Great Britain , four in Wales, and four in Ireland. Dr Duilcan died in 1846 whilst attending to the cares of his ministry. A man of exemplary modesty, he wrote to a friend in the last few years of his life: “It is sad to have been lab- ' ouring nearly half a century in the ! vineyard and to have produced so lit—ile fruit.”