England, where it is not customary for the mercantile banks to allow interest even upon the largest deposites. If associations of this kind, in that country, should therefore comprise a large proportion of men of information, and the number of their members be consequently very limited, they may certainly find their account in managing their own affairs; but the character of such societies has but a very slight affinity with that of Saving Banks.
Having been led to notice the remarkable difference in the conduct of English and Scottish banks, in regard to the advantage they allow to depositors, I cannot avoid observing, that the practice of the latter, in paying interest on deposites of so small an amount as £10, has materially contributed to diffuse among the lower orders of this country, that abstinence and foresight by which they are so favourably distinguished from the same class in England. The desire of accumulating a little capital is never, except among the very worst paid labourers, or such as have large families, repressed in this country, by the difficulty of finding for it a secure and profitable depository. Partly to this circumstance, perhaps, though it has been generally overlooked, it may be owing that so many Scotsmen have been enabled to rise from the class of labourers; and, by habits of application and economy, which are very generally combined, establish themselves in a few years in the learned professions, or arrive at independence through the more lucrative pursuits of commerce. In England, on the contrary, there is no such facility to the secure and profitable investment of small savings: monied men,—at least bankers, the most convenient and accessible of this description,—pay no interest; and landed proprietors cannot always be safe depositories, while the laws of England protect their estates from the just demands of their creditors.
On a future occasion I may probably offer you some remarks on the moral effects to be looked for from the introduction and increase of Saving Banks, when I shall venture to examine what I think is a most injudicious, and by no means impartial, article on this subject, in the Part of the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica recently published. It is written with so much ability, and with such an appearance of precision and of close reasoning, that those who take a deep interest in so promising an institution, cannot fail to be astonished, as well as somewhat alarmed, at the extraordinary opinion of its author, when, after a very imperfect, though an imposing view of their probable utility, he comes to this conclusion, that, "taken by themselves, it is at least a doubt whether Saving Banks[1] may not produce as great a quantity of evil as good." Hi.
20th February, 1817.
TALES AND ANECDOTES OF THE
PASTORAL LIFE.
No I.
MR EDITOR,
Last autumn, while I was staying a few weeks with my friend Mr Grumple, minister of the extensive and celebrated parish of Woolenhorn, an incident occurred which hath afforded me a great deal of amusement; and as I think it may divert some of your readers, I shall, without further preface, begin the relation.
We had just finished a wearisome debate on the rights of teind, and the claims which every clergyman of the
established church of Scotland has for
- ↑ It is a curious circumstance, that an appropriate term for those banks should still be wanting. "Saving Banks," though the most common appellation by which they are known, seems to please nobody. The Edinburgh reviewers long since found fault with it as it was then printed. The writer of the article referred to in the text tells us, that some adjunct is wanted to distinguish this from other species of banks, and no good one has yet been found. He rejects "Provident Institution," and "Frugality Bank," equally with "Saving Bank;" and thinks that "Poor's Bank," would be the best, if it were not humiliating. Mr Duncan gave the Ruthwell Institution the ample title of the "Parish Bank Friendly Society of Ruthwell." The Quarterly reviewers will not consent to this, and propose the term "Friendly Bank," with the name of the place prefixed. But the Edinburgh and other banks, in which the depositors are strangers to each other, and do not interfere in the management, are not very aptly designated by this latest invention, unless it be understood to apply to the managers exclusively.—Be so good as insert this note for the purpose of exercising the ingenuity of your readers. Hi.
