Note 139 — Chapter VII

Much to the same purpose a well-known writer in the London Review says: As long as Savings Banks are Savings Banks, based, on the one hand, on the confidence of the poor, and, on the other, on the benevolence of the local clergy and gentry, acting as trustees and managers without fee and reward, and therefore without such bounden obligations as men can be called to account upon, so long will frauds periodically arise, opening up great gulfs of deficits, strewing thorns upon the pillows of the poor, and driving sharp pangs of despair into their hearts. Dr. Hancock, in one of his admirable pamphlets, alluding to the system of checks relied on by the managers of many banks, says: It is impossible, in the nature of things, to devise a perfect system of checks. So long as the work has to be done by human agency there must always be some risk. To secure the performance of actions by human agents, three forces commonly operate: 1, A morel sense of duty; 2, A fear of large pecuniary loss from liability, in case of the non-performance of duty; and 3, A fear of judicial punishment, if non-performance be made a penal offence. The limit placed on the liability of the managers effectually took away or reduced to a minimum the fear of loss and of punishment, and the divided responsibility there has always been between Government and the trustees, by weakening the sense of duty, did the rest.