DEPOSITORS  AND  DEPOSITS

103

bond  investments,  one  arrives  at  $1,800,000  (in
round  numbers)  as  the  interest  earned  for  the
year.  This  represents  an  average  daily  balance,
drawing  interest,  of  $72,000,000. 49  This  sum
came  entirely  from  depositors,  but  for  the  same
period  the  sum  on  which  interest  was  allowed  and
entered  to  the  credit  of  depositors  was  but  $48,-209,350,
  or  67  per  cent  of  that  upon  which  the
Government  received  interest.  Viewed  in  another ­
  way,  if  the  Government  had  paid  its  2  per
cent  to  depositors  on  the  same  sum  (less  the  5  per
cent  reserve)  as  that  upon  which  it  received  its
2¿  per  cent  it  would  have  paid  depositors  $1,516,-000
  instead  of  $964,187.
The  explanation  of  the  great  discrepancy  between ­
  interest  paid  and  interest  received  consists
chiefly  in  the  fact  that  depositors  forfeit  their  accumulated ­
  interest  by  withdrawing  substantial
sums  before  the  end  of  the  year  interest  period.
Third  Assistant  Postmaster-General  Dockery
recently  cited  the  following  figures  relating  to
this  subject  before  a  committee  of  the  United
States  Senate:  “Sixty-two  per  cent  of  the  deposits ­
  are  withdrawn  before  they  have  been  on
deposit  one  year;  53  per  cent  of  the  38  per
cent  that  remains  is  withdrawn  within  the  second
49  On  this  basis  the  total  average  daily  balance  (inclusive
of  the  5  per  cent  reserve  at  Washington)  would  have  been
about  $75,800,000.