undoubted responsibility are always ready to receive, and to pay four per cent. interest for money deposited; and some of which have displayed so much liberality, as to allow even five per cent. on the deposites of Saving Banks. It may be doubted, whether such a clause would be advisable even for England. The first and immediate advantage of such a provision, it is said, is greater security; and the next and more remote one, that it will give the lower classes a greater interest in the stability of the government. But its disadvantages are not less obvious, and to many may appear to preponderate in the scale. From every just view of the nature and object of Saving Banks, every thing that has the appearance of compulsion must be excluded. This is one fundamental principle which should not be lost sight of in any of its operations. Against this greater security, too, must be placed the perpetual and often, even to well-informed people, the unaccountable fluctuation of the public funds, produced, as is well known, by means not always the most creditable, and therefore more likely to irritate the minds of the depositors than to attach them to their rulers. Besides, it may be asked, what is the amount of this security, in so far as individual contributors are concerned? They cannot go to the stock exchange to make the purchases themselves, but their money must pass through the hands of two or more individuals before it can be invested in the public funds, and through as many again when they choose to withdraw it; so that the responsibility of their own directors must, at least in the first instance, be their principal dependence; to say nothing of the delay that must occur in the payments of the bank, unless a considerable proportion of the deposites be retained by the treasurer, and consequently be unproductive. The Quarterly Reviewers observe, (No 31) that "the investment of money belonging to friendly banks should be left to the direction of their members, or to that of the trustee whom they may appoint, and from whom they may require security for its proper application;" an observation which implies, indeed, that the different characters of a creditor and of a member of a Saving Bank, must necessarily be identified in the plan of its constitution, but which is not the less just when this obvious distinction of character is, as I am inclined to think it should be, preserved, both in its original constitution and in the conduct of its affairs.
I have already expressed my conviction, that a Saving Bank, in its character, ought as nearly as possible to approach to a common trading bank, or to that branch of its business which consists in receiving and returning money deposited; and, as in Scotland, with interest for the time it has been under its care. Whatever departure from this principle, therefore, may be desirable in the commencement of a very limited local establishment, such as the parish bank of Ruth well, in Dumfriesshire, the inconvenience and danger that must be felt from the popular election of the officers of a numerous and extensive association, composed, with few exceptions, of the least informed portion of the community, seem to outweigh all the advantages which have been ascribed to it. While the institution is in its infancy, and the zeal for its success, which in some measure supplies the want of experience in the managers, may be paramount to every other feeling in the minds of the depositors, there may be no great inconvenience in general meetings and periodical elections, which, at this early period, it cannot be difficult for its philanthropic founders and patrons to direct or control. But it is by no means probable that men, whose education and property entitle them to influence the proceedings of such associations, will always be found ready to undertake so difficult a task, and always successful in the attempt. There is certainly more reason to fear, after the zeal of novelty has subsided, and the founders have been removed by death or otherwise, that the management of the concern may become the object of caballing and intrigue among the members themselves, or among others in a station very little higher, and be seized by men whose knowledge of business, or whose integrity, is far from being their chief recommendation. It would display little knowledge of human nature to predict different consequences from the popular election of the officers of Saving Banks in a great town, where the association must contain a large portion of heterogeneous and repulsive materials.
