Note 95 — Chapter V

You take the money of these depositors, and you give them the entire security of the State for their money. They cannot have a better security; and if you give them that, they have no interest in the employment of the money: it does not signify to them if you fling it to the bottom of the sea. So long as the Treasury of the country is sound, it does not matter one rush what the Chancellor of the Exchequer does with the money. If he invests it well, they are no richer; and if he plays all the tricks of the mountebank, or disposes of it with the artifice of the swindler, they are none the poorer. The depositor in Savings Banks have nothing to do with the question, and it is only weakening and impairing their position to make them depend upon the prudence of the minister, instead of upon the credit of the British public. Savings Bank managers held a strong opinion against what they called jobbing with their funds. They said Mr. Goulburn had promised that the practice should be stopped; and it was, in 1844; but that Mr. Gladstone had revived the practice illegally in 1853. These bills were not introduced in 1855.