The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1867.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 215, 13 September 1867, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1867.

We have learned with some surprise that the experiment which was initiated by the Grovernment some few months ago in this city with reference to the establishment of Savings Banks in connection with the Provincial branches of the General Postoffice, has not been attended with the success which might reasonably have been anticipated from such a provision, furnishing, as it does, so beneficial an addition to the facilities which exist for the practice of frugality on the part of the operative classes. It was hoped, and not unreasonably, that the opportunity which was thus afforded to the laboriug classes of disposing profitably of their earnings would have been very generally embraced, and that the maximum and minimum limits of deposit, ranging, as they do, from £200 to Is. would extend the benefits of the institution to the very poorest classes of society, and thus render the Post-office a serviceable auxiliary to the ordinary Savings Bank. By this arrangement interest is guaranteed at the rate of five per cent, per annum, and deposits are repaid not later than ten days after demand, whilst the postmasters and others are prohibited from disclosing the names of depositors or the amounts claimed. In the mother country these institutions have been eminently successful, as may be gathered from the published official returns; snd it is gratifying to be able to sate that, concurrently with the prevalence of provident habits among the very poor there was an actual increase during the past year in the deposits in the old savings banks. "We might therefore have been perfectly justified in anticipating even more satisfactory results from the extension of the principle upon which these Post-office Savings Banks have been founded in this colony, where the earnings of all classes are so much higher than they are in the mother country, while the difference between those earnings and the expenditure which is absolutely uecessary for food, raiment, and lodging, is so much greater as to enable every man, woman, and youth in constant employment to put by a portion of their weekly wages. It seems almost superfluous to remind those for whose especial benefit institutions of this kind are set on foot, of the wisdom of Mr Micawber's advice on the subject of living within our means. Nor does it lessen its value to point to the example of those who, being in a position to know better, deliberately live beyond them. The avenues to fortune in this colony are open to all, and, the first step taken in that direction is usually an effort of self-denial and of thrift, which practice soon renders a 'property of easiness.' The bulk of those who have become opulent among ub have been the architects of their own fortunes, and have owed the origin of them. to. prudence. We are far from advocating extreme parsimony, or from setting up the acquisition of wealth as the 'summum bonum' of human existence; but the ambition to rise in life to achieve an independence, to give to a man's children advantages of education and training from which he was himself debarred, and to obtain the command of that ease of mind and body which fortune secures, is a just'- and laudable one, if

honestly and- honorably carried out. Where, as in this colony, there are no privileged classes, no artificial impediments to industry, and nothing whatever to prevent a sheep-shearer or an errand boy from rising to the highest offices of the State, the road" to wealth, or wbat is better, to easy circumstances, is a smooth and frequently by no means a tedious one. Frugality is frequently synonymous with privation in England. It is not so here. It may often be practised on no other conditions than the surrender of what at the other cud of the world would certainly be considered luxuries. Moreover, a broad distinction is to be drawn between the industry aud thriftiness which are exercised in order to secure an independency, as a means to an cud, that is to say; and the same qualities when applied to the mere accumulation of wealth for its own sake, which is mistaking the means for the end. In the latter case a man is more likely to sacrifice his happiness and that of his family than to promote it; whereas in the former be will probably advance both. Be this as it may, however, the encouragement of habits of frugality in the population is an object of governmental concern, aud now that the Post-office in every considerable town in the colony has become a bank of deposit for savings, the State has fulfilled its duty in providing the requisite machinery, and the people can no longer complain that they are debarred the opportunity of investing their surplus earnings with ease, profit, and security.