CASH IN SUPERABUNDANCE.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1144, 23 January 1874, Page 4

CASH IN SUPERABUNDANCE.

[wESTPOKT EVENING STAB.] Three millions sterling lying on deposit in the Banks of the Colony, of which nearly two-thirds returns no interest to depositors ! Thus the fact stands on record, authenticated by the statements of Banking affairs published from time to time in the New Zealand Gazette. Comment thereon is a stock subject for journalists who, in the face of the scarcity of circulating medium for daily and hourly transactions, still, by the inexorable logic of facts, are fain to instance the heavy bank deposits as proof convincing of the prosperity of the colony. The most concise, and hence apt, remarks thex-eon we cull from the Timaru Herald for the benefit of our readers :-

"It must not be supposed that this huge heap of "demnition gold and silver" is really lying idle in the strong rooms of the banks ; far from it; accounts are overdrawn, bills are discounted, loans are effected on mortgage or on security, real, personal, reversionary, or imaginary ; the wind is raised, kites arc flown, and the mare is made to go in every conceivable fashion, and all through the agency of the three millions supposed to be lying on deposit in the banks. The real owners of the money, good easy men, have nothing to do with all this ; they bring their money to the banker and give it to him to take care of, and go away coutented, while he takes such particularly good care of their cash that he often makes as much out of it for his employers, as it amouuts to itself. It may seem a paradox, but on examination will be found to be a simple fact, to say that the depositors of the one million at interest are less thrifty and are probably doing worse with their money than those of the two millions without interest; because those who deposit their money at interest, do so for a year or six months at least, and get from three to five per cent, for it; while those whose money makes up the two millions deposited without interest, have probably put it into the bank for a few days or weeks, and will take it out soon and make seven, eight, ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent, from it by investing it themselves—that is to say, spending it judiciously in paying businesses."