ORDER FOR SECOND READING DISCHARGED. (Hansard, 18 July 1870)

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
moved that the Order of the Day for the Second Reading of this Bill be read and discharged.

§ MR. ASSHETON CROSS
said, he was glad to hear that the Order of the Day for the Second Reading of this Bill was to be read and discharged; but he felt bound to remark that this was a Bill which proposed to affect the savings, amounting to £37,000,000, of 1,500,000 depositors, and that the effect of introducing a measure of this kind last year and during the present year had been 465 to cause distrust among persons who were accustomed to deposit their money in savings banks. Many persons had withdrawn money who would otherwise have kept it in the banks, and many persons who would have deposited money had been deterred from placing it in the banks after what had occurred. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that in the course of the year there had been a loss of £125,000 in the amount of interest payable to the depositors, and this loss would fall upon the public. He thought it ought to go forth to the public that the depositors would receive every farthing of their deposits, and that the loss would not in any way fall upon them further than that in future the rate of interest payable to them would be reduced. If the matter were inquired into he should be able to show that this deficiency was occasioned, first, by the action of the Government, and secondly, by what had happened years ago, for which the present depositors should not suffer. He trusted next year that the right hon. Gentleman would not bring forward a Bill of this sort in the first week of the Session only to withdraw it towards its close. He trusted that a Committee would be appointed to inquire into the cause of the deficiency, and whether that deficiency could not be met by any other way than by reducing the amount of the interest.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, he would not detain the House with any lengthened statement upon this subject. As he had already stated the public had lost £5,000,000 by the savings banks; they were still losing at the rate of £100,000 per annum, and the object of the Bill was to stop that loss by reducing the rate of interest.