52 On Post Office Savings' BanTcs, Sfc. 



And now let us see to what extent the system has been availed 

 of by the industrious classes, for whose benefit the movement 

 was designed. 



The sources of my information bring me no nearer to the 

 present time than the end of the year 1867. At that period 

 there were 36-9 Post-office Savings' Banks in operation. The 

 number of deposits received in that year was 1,592,344, and the 

 amount was £4,643,906, showing an average of £2 18s. 4d. 

 The number of withdrawals was 581,972, amounting to £3,222,800, 

 showing an average of £5 10s. 9d. 



The charges of management of this large business amounted 

 to £62,700, or 7d. on each transaction. The number of accounts 

 opened during the year was 264,341, and the namber of accounts 

 closed was 155,612. Whilst the number of accounts remaining 

 open at the end of the year was 854,983 ; and the total amount 

 standing to the credit of these open accounts was £9,749,929, 

 showing an average of £11 8s. to credit of each account. 



From the commencement of the system on the 16th September, 

 1861, to the 31st December, 1867, the total amount of deposits 

 received exceeded twenty millions sterling, and the balance in 

 hand of Postmaster- General at the latter date, applicable to 

 payment of deposits, was £9,915,393. 



Later statistics, kindly furnished me by Mr. Black, the A ctuary 

 of the Mutual Provident Society, show that at the close of 1868 

 the depositors numbered 965,154 — an increase of over 12 per 

 cent, on the preceding year ; and that the balance due to 

 depositors amounted to £11,666,655 — an increase of over 19 per 

 cent, on the balances of the preceding year. 



Now, when we consider that this vast business is merely a 

 kind of supplement or adjunct to the transactions of the ordinary 

 Savings' Banks i;nder trustees, which at the close of the year 

 1867 had a credit with the National Debt Commissioners of 

 £36,792,911; and of the Friendly societies, which had a credit 

 of £1,803,478— together, £38,596,389,— we wonder that the 

 Post Office can have found such a wide field of operation as we 

 have seen that it has covered. 



"We will now glance at the Post Office Savings' Bank system 

 of Victoria, established in the year 1865, and subsequently 

 regulated by the Post Office Statute of 1866, by which the rate 

 of interest upon deposits is fixed at £4 per cent, per annum. 

 The regulations are framed upon the model of those in force in 

 England, and I append to this paper a progressive statement of the 

 working of these Savings' Banks from their introduction in 1865 

 to the close of the year 1869. 



