Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/176

166 give anything like an absolute security for the funds intrusted to them. There are, moreover, some large sections of the country in which there are no facilities whatever for the safe-keeping of surplus earnings.

Postal savings-banks could easily be made accessible to all the people. There is in every town a post-office, generally conveniently situated, open all day, and visited by many of the people. All classes are accustomed to intrust their letters, and perhaps their money or property, to it. A depository for savings in this office would certainly be accessible to the whole community. A Government guarantee for the money deposited would furnish the absolute security that is needed to encourage the people to intrust their surplus earnings to such savings depositories.

Whether the Government could conduct such institutions without loss to itself, or injury to private enterprise, or the unsafe enlargement of its functions, is a question in regard to which there is some difference of opinion. Perhaps the greatest difficulty would be that of finding some safe, permanent, and profitable use for the money deposited. Many hold that, if the Government should only guarantee the repayment of deposits without interest, large numbers of the people would gladly place their surplus earnings with it for safe keeping. However this may be, a low rate of interest would add much to the popularity and attractiveness of the arrangement. Two per cent has been suggested as a rate that would be attractive to depositors without interfering much with private banking enterprises, provided the sums taken from individual depositors were not too large. It is estimated that the cost of management might, for the first few years, reach three fourths of one per cent. It would be much more likely to fall considerably below than go above this limit. The problem before the Government, then, would be to safely invest the deposits at two and three fourths per cent.

The European nations which have postal savings-banks, with two or three exceptions, have large national debts, which are not likely to be paid off for centuries to come. The investment of small sums by large numbers of the people in Government securities greatly increases the loyalty of the masses and their interest in governmental affairs. The Government thus borrows at a low rate, and an incidental result of its so doing is to render its citizens more thrifty, independent, self-respecting, and loyal. It is certainly an open question whether the policy of rapidly paying off our national debt, when it could be refunded at so low a rate, is wise. Apart from the necessities of the national banking system, there is a great deal to be said in favor of allowing the principal to remain for an indefinite period when the masses of our laboring-men and poorer classes would gladly take the greater part of the loan at two and three fourths per cent, or perhaps even at a lower rate, and be greatly benefited by so doing. The adoption