ON BANKS AND THE INTENTION OF SAVINGS' BANKS.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume 1, Issue 11, 24 May 1849, Page 2

ON BANKS AND THE INTENTION OF SAVINGS' BANKS.

(Continued from our last.) The banks of which I told you in my last letter, are chiefly banks for the use of rich people—fitting to contain, securely from robbery or fire, the large sums of money which it would not be safe to keep in other houses.

These banks, as I have shown you, ate also useful to the merchant, who is continually buying and selling goods that are brought from remote countries, and who sells the produce of his own locality in places far distant. But banks ate also wanted for the use of poor people—banks to which they might send a few shillings at a time, and get back that small sum when they have occasion for the use of it—and for these purposes Savings' Banks were thought of and established. Many hard working men, both Maories and Europeaos, often possess money in small sums, which there is no necessity for them immediately to spend. They know that if they keep this, and in a short lime add some more to it, a suflicient sum will be accumulated for them to buy ninelhitig which they especially require- Some may see that a cow or a horse would be very useful to them, but money « hicli they have is not near enough for its purchase. All that they can spare in each week may be a very few shillings ; the rest must be expended in tho purchase of food and clothing. Now many weeks, and even months, must elapse before they can accumulate enough to buy the horse or the cow. If they were to keep the money in their own cottage it might be lost or stolen, but if they put it into the savings' bank it will be quite safe, and they can get it again in any week in which they may want it. Should they keep the inoiuy in their own houses, some of it might betaken, in a thoughtless moment, in order to pay for spirits, on which they might become intoxicated, or to gamble with, and so be lost; but if it be kept in the savings' bank, it will not be so used. Before a man can go to draw his money from the bank, he has time to think on the purpose to which it is to be appropriated, and when he comes to think seriously, he will not take out of tho savings' bank the money which he lias worked hard to obtain, and which he has been long accumulating, to spend it in gambling or to pay for the means of becoming intoxicated. Now if a man has five pounds in the savings' bank, Hnd goes on putting in a shilling or two that he can spare each week, it is evident that he will, in a year or more, have a considerable sum accumulated. He will not feel the poorer for having saved this money, because, hud he not saved it, he would most probably have spent it foolishly in the purchase of some trifling thing that would be of very little service to him. I am speaking of the money which he may save after hi; has bouuht what food he may have to pay for, and what clothing he and his family icquire. Now supposing that a man put five pounds in the savings' bank, and let it remain thero during one year, upon his itoini( to the bank he will find that for tho use of his fivo pounds lie is entitled to receive five shillings above that money, and that in the books of the bank, instead of its being written that five pounds is owing to him, he will find that five pounds five shillings is placed against his name, as belonging to him. If he have put in ten pounds, there will bo, at the end of the year, ten pounds ten shillings owing in the same manner. Now five shillings upon five pounds, and ten shillings upon ten pounds, is not a very large sum, but it ia very evident, that if the man had kept the money in his own house, or if he had put it, as some Maories do their money, in a hole in the ground, that not ten shillings, nor five shillings, nor even one penny, would have been added to it, but thnt, if none were stolen, it would be precisely tho turn that was first put there, A man who has five pounds in the savings' bank already, soon finds that by the sale of his corn, his flax, his pigs, or his potatoes, he can put some more money in, and when he have ten pounds there he will work hard, and in a short time it is nearly sure he will have a few pounds more, and then he can buy the cow, the horse, or whatever ho thinks would be most useful to him. In this way savings' banks have done so much good amongst the poor people of England and Europe, that in order to make it quite safe for people to trust their money in these banks, a law has been made, by which the money so put into the savings' banks must be kept and taken care of by the Queen's Governor, or some one appointed by him to receive it, and to pay it again when it is required. By this law, therefore, when the money is put into the bank it is quite safe ; for if the people who received it were to die, yet the Governor would cause it to be paid back when it might be demanded; and even should the Governor die, or go from the country, the next Governor will be bound to see that the money is regularly and punctually paid. Many white people who came to the settlements of Auckland, Wellington, and Nelson, seven or eight years since, have, by thus taking care of their money, and not spending it on useless things, become rich ; many who then traded on the coast in boats now have schooners and ships, und those who had but one horse or cow, now have ninny. T/icir

houses, too, aro larger, and belter than they were. They have also more money; and when they die they will be able to leave to their children the property they have been able to accumulate ,by thus saving, and their children will he as rich as their fathers were. You will have noticed that some whito peoplo are richer than others, that they havo more cattle, more goods and money, better clothes, and larger houses than the rest. Now, the only maimer in which they liavo obtained these riches, is through having worked hard, and saved all their spare money, or by their lathers or grandfathers having done so before them. So wealth is accumulated, and those families which are industrious, and saving, bec.me very rich, while others, who never cared to save their money, remain—■ father and children—still poor.