Postal Bank At Washington

Assistant Secretary Spaulding' of the treasury department at Washington was intérviewed on tlie subject of postal savings banks the other day by a Chicago Record correspondent. He said : "I do not thiuk the government ought to enter the banking business in competition with private parties, but the postal-savings banks need not do this. As I understaud the purpose of the advocates of this system, it is to acconamodate certain sinall depositors who could not in most cases reach banks and who dissipate tlieir small earnings uuder present conditions. If this system reaclies such people it will prove agreat benefit to them. Postal-savings banks open a way for insignificant deposits to accumulate and becoine of appreciable value to the depositor. In this way such banks are au incentive for econotny and induce thrift. Self-respect accompanies the possession of a little money, and such a system, therefore, tends to better citizeuship. It also tends to place considerable money at the disposal of the government whicb otherwise would be lost both to the goverument and the citizen. It seems to me that the plan ought to be worked out to great advmitage to everybody concerned." Third Assistant Postmaster-General Merritt said to the same correspondent: "The people should be encouraged in habits of thrift and economy, and no better way of accomplishing that result can be devised than by offering them a perfectly secure and reliable sa ving a bank, where small deposits can be placed at interest. The habit of economy once formed will rapidly grow and spread, and postal-savings banks will prove success from the day they are established in this country."