16

POSTAL  SAVINGS

exists  between  a  bank  and  its  customers.  They
further  argued  that  postal  savings  banks  would
be  a  help  rather  than  a  hindrance  to  other  banks.
They  would  educate  the  people  to  habits  of  thrift
and  would  draw  money  out  of  hoards,  particularly ­
  those  of  the  foreign  born;  and  the  deposits
which  the  postal  savings  banks  received  would  for
the  most  part  be  transferred  to  other  banks  as
soon  as  the  limit  fixed  for  postal  savings  bank
deposits  should  be  reached,  or  even  before,  as  the
depositor  began  to  appreciate  the  safety  of  other
banks  and  the  advantage  of  their  higher  rate  of
interest.  If  the  postal  savings  banks  in  the  early
days  had  been  serious  competitors  of  the  trustee
banks  in  England,  it  was  pointed  out,  this  was
largely  because  of  the  shortcomings 25  of  those
private  banks  ;  in  most  other  countries,  notably  in
Italy, 26  the  Netherlands, 27  France 28  and  Hungary, ­
 29  the  postal  savings  banks  had  been  found
to  be  not  competitors  but  co-workers.

25  Cf.  Lewins,  chaps.  6,  7  and  pp.  322  et  seq.
20  Hamilton,  p.  373;  also  House  Rep.  No.  1445,  61  Cong.,
3  Sess.,  p.  2.
27  Hamilton,  p.  380.
28  Ibid.,  pp.  381,  383.
29  E.  T.  Heyn,  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of
Political  and  Social  Science,  VIII,  p.  488.