80 
POSTAL SAVINGS 
In this connection the experience of six years 
of postal savings should be described with refer 
ence to the fear early expressed that the exist 
ence of postal savings banks would encourage 
runs on the banks in times of great financial 
distrust. With such depositories for the safe 
keeping of money everywhere available, it was 
urged, the timid would withdraw their deposits 
from banks on the slightest provocation and de 
posit them at the post offices. 21 
Opponents of postal savings said that the dif 
ference between the interest paid by the postal 
savings bank and that paid by the other banks 
would be a matter of slight consequence in times 
of panic, safety of deposits being the great de 
sideratum; and that the accessibility and safety 
of postal savings banks would encourage exces 
sive withdrawals from other banks. The money 
21 In 1893 there were runs on the postal savings banks in 
France, as a result of charges that the people’s money was 
being sunk in the building of the Panama Canal. Economist, 
LI, p. 127. There were also runs a few years ago on 
some postal savings banks in England, because a political 
speaker made the assertion that the whole of the postal 
savings bank deposits had been lost in the South African 
War. Bankers’ Magazine (London), LXXXII, p. 402. 
During the crisis in England at the outbreak of the 
European War, when the joint stock banks remained closed 
from August 3 until August 7, the postal savings banks 
remained open, and did not suffer seriously from with 
drawals. A. M. Keynes, War and the Financial System, 
Economic Journal, Sept., 1914, p. 473.