350 



unknown to tlie Englisli language. The sum total of the balances in the 

 banks, although legally demandable at once, can as safely be relied on by the 

 bankers as a constant average capable of being safely employed in their 

 biisiness. Of course, a prudent and well managed bank must keep a consider- 

 able amount of specie to meet all demands ; but there is a net balance of 

 deposits which it can use to accommodate its customers. I am not aware what 

 the deposits in the banks in New Zealand amount to, but they count by 

 millions.* In Victoria, in 1862, the deposits exceeded £8,000,000, whilst the 

 reserve of specie was under <£2, 500,000, so that they must have felt them- 

 selves safe to lend five and a half millions out of the deposits of their 

 customers, though the whole of those deposits were legally demandable at 

 once, and without notice, or " at call," as it is technically expressed. It may 

 therefore be no small comfort to any gentleman patriotically disposed, who, for 

 his own convenience, keeps an average balance of £100 at his bankers, to 

 know that he really is an indirect promoter of productive industry to some- 

 thing like two-thirds of that balance ; and although he does not deposit his 

 money with any such benevolent intention, he may really be indirectly helping 

 some farmer at Lake Wakatipvi, or some miner at Naseby. 



It is, in truth, in the order of providence, or, to change the expression, it 

 is a natural law, that we are made doers of good without intending and with- 

 out knowing it. But how, it may be asked, do our annual savings, whether 

 from cheap transport or any other cause, reach the farmer of Wakatipu? 

 I will answer this question by another : Can anyone tell me of that remote 

 region which is outside and beyond the direct or indirect beneficial influence of 

 banks 1 The banks lend the money of their shareholders and their dejDOsitors 

 to their own town customers, chiefly the merchants and wholesale traders. 

 These are thereby enabled to give increased accommodation and credit to their 

 customers — the country storekeepers. The storekeepers, in their turn, are 

 better enabled to give credit and other accommodation to the farmer ; and he, 

 in his turn, gives employment to the labourer. The banks, moreover, by 

 means of their country branches, bring themselves into more immediate contact 

 with the country demand for assistance. Thus it is that every shilling saved 

 and invested goes to swell the aggregate of " that portion of the wealth of the 

 country annually set apart for production." 



Thus it is that I believe myself justified in saying that the remotest parts 

 of the country cannot fail to participate in the advantages which spring from 

 railway enterprise. This is really the compensating element of the whole 

 scheme. The direct benefit of railways cannot be equally shared. Those who 



* I have since met with the Bank statements in the Gazette of the 1st of September. 

 The deposits amount to £3, 177,056 ; the specie reserve ia £967,201; the balance avail- 

 able for accommodation, £2,209,855. 



