on this question, and Mr. J. W. Bowen of the Union of Post Office Workers attended before us to give evidence on their behalf. Mr. Bowen instanced the development that had taken place on the continent, and made particular reference to the successful development of the Belgian Postal Cheque System. He contended that as the Postmaster-General is one of the biggest bankers in the country, with over ten million depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank, a Postal Cheque System should be introduced for the benefit of those depositors, which would attract other depositors and fresh money with advantage to the State. He considered that there was still a large excess of floating money in this country which could be tapped to advantage by the extension of cheque facilities, and held that it would be to the advantage both of the public and of the banks if a class of the population which was not touched by commercial banking could be educated in the use of banking facilities. 10. Cheque facilities for Savings Bank Depositors.—In the light of these representations the question of an extension of Savings Bank facilities in the direction of enabling Savings Bank depositors to draw cheques on their accounts was examined. It is thought that depositors would find it convenient to deposit in their Savings Bank accounts some of the cash that they now retain to hand for sundry payments and to take out cheques against such additional balances. The primary difficulty in applying facilities of this kind to Savings Bank depositors is the fact that no references are required from them as in the case of the customers of commercial banks. There would therefore be considerable danger in allowing them the use of cheque books without some additional safeguards. 11. Savings Bank Limited Cheques.—A means of affording such safeguards would be to place a maximum limit on the amount of the cheques that could be drawn and to issue such cheques only when balances were sufficient to cover the maximum amount drawable. The cheques could be of various maximum limits such as £10, £5, £2, and £1 and could be drawn for any sum within the maximum, and books containing such cheques in denominations to aggregate to amounts of £50 and £20, or such other amounts as might be found suitable, could be made up and issued against equivalent balances. A “stop ”” would be placed on the account to the extent of the maximum value of the cheques, and a similar entry would be made in the deposit book. The cheques would be sent direct by the drawer to the payee like ordinary cheques and would be presented normally through a bank. They would be crossed. 12. Costs of Limited Cheques.—The effect of introducing cheques for Savings Bank depositors would probably be to increase the number of transactions in accounts where cheques were used, i.e., to give them more the nature of current accounts, but as a set-off against this extra expense there would be a tendency to raise the average balances in such accounts. To meet the cost of the additional work of handling the cheques we suggest that no interest should (C13497) Ly