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, particu 
larly 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 Hun 
gary, 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.