OCR Text |
Show BANKERS OPPOSE BOTH SCHEMES. The convention of bankers in Denver Den-ver have declared emphatically both against tho postal savings bank system and against tho bankers' insurance of bank deposits. This was to bo expected from the intelligent men and financial experts that are in this convention, the men of mone3cd affairs, who have tho handling of tho community cash and whose money and influence are generally so well directed toward tho development develop-ment of community resources and the fostering of industrial and business interests. in-terests. Tho postal savings scheme operating at the public cost and free from all forms of taxation, would be at a tremendous tre-mendous advantago over the savings banks as at present established, and over every form of banking in inviting deposits; tho postofiice being free from all public burdens could do better b depositors than the ordinary savings bank or any other form of bnnkiug, aud would, in addition, be so absolute' safe that the talk of insuring bank deposits de-posits would be idle. Besides, as we havo pointed out, tho government could not handle, tho large aggregate of the deposits it would, recoivo to au3 eort of advantage: it could not use these deposits de-posits for pft3ing current expenses; it could not invest them profitably; it has moro nionoi now than it knows what to do with, and finds difiicult3- in having tho banks accept it as special deposits. As to the insuranco of bank deposits by funds accumulated through assessments assess-ments on tho wholo of the banks of tho State or of the community, it is absolutely evident, as wo have heretofore hereto-fore urged, that the enforcement of an3 such plan would necessarily restrict the liberty of the individual to go into the banking business. For if the banks must insure the deposits of other banks, thci will take care to havo as few banks as possible, aud to havo such as aro to continue in business, members of tho trust or monopoh that must inevitably inevit-ably be established bi the enforcement of such bank insurance. Men who havo money in tho. banking business are riot in the least likely to risk that mone3 bi allowing persons to either engage or to continue in banking in whom the strong banks do not have the most implicit im-plicit confidence. Under the operation of the plan to compel banks to insure all bank deposits, the public can be pcrfOctly assured that in a very short limo tlierc would bo no banks I'cmain-ing I'cmain-ing in business whoso deposits would in tho least need to bo insured. All the weak aud .speculative banks would be weeded out, and nono but the strong and sound would remain in business; for that is the 0UI3' sort of bank that the ger.ircl bn. rkinff, J?" fcrL'Jty would consent to insure. And tho banks would be euro to make tho people pay the cost of it all. As we pointed out tho other day, both of theso propositions, tho Taft scheme for postal savings banks and the Bryan scheme for the insurance of bank deposits, de-posits, arc dangerous departures from sound business methods and public policies. pol-icies. It 5b hard to say which would bo tho moro disastrous, tho insurance proposition in the trust and monopoly which it would inovitabl3' create, or tho postal savings scheme in the cer-tainti cer-tainti that it would drive out of business busi-ness tho savings banks of tho country and would seriouBli' cripple the general gen-eral bank deposits, while at the same timo imposing a burden upon tho government gov-ernment which it would be almost impossible im-possible for it to bear. |