RESULTS OF FISCAL MALADMINISTRATION 69 

 working classes. The amount of deposits almost doubled 

 between 1894 and 1904. In 1894 they amounted to 

 4,000.67 millions of marks (£196,111,275), in 1905, 

 to 7,761.93 millions (£380,485,300). The total amount 

 in the whole of the German Empire of the deposits lying 

 in the savings banks, is said to be about £598,000,000. 



Similar statistics for the United Kingdom provide 

 the following figures : 



1894 1904 



Post Office Savings Banks £89,266,006 £148,339,354 

 Trustee Savings Bank £43,474,904 £ 52,280,861 



£132,740,910 £200,620,215 



These figures show that for every head of population 

 in Germany there is a sum of £10 12s. 2d. in the savings 

 banks, while for the United Kingdom there is but 

 £4 15s. 7d., or less than one-half. 



While in Germany also the deposits of the working 

 classes had about doubled in the ten years ending 1904, 

 they had only increased in this country by fifty-one per cent, 

 in the same period. 



In this commercial world we generally measure a 

 man's prosperity by his bank balance; and if we apply 

 this practical standard to the working classes of Great 

 Britain and Germany, we shall find that our own people 

 suffer considerably by the contrast. It supplies a scath- 

 ing condemnation of the economic and fiscal system, for 

 it proves its utter unsuitability to the present needs of the 

 country, while it serves no purpose but to spread wealth 

 and prosperity among foreign nations at the expense of 



