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Show RAYNER ON POSTAL SAVINGS. Senator Payncr of Maryland, a good constitutional Jawyor, finds no warrant in the national constitution for the establishment es-tablishment of postal savings banks. He docs not consider that the general wel-faro wel-faro clause covers the case, nor that tho authority conferred to establish postofliccs and post roads fits tho proposition. propo-sition. Ho docs not think that there is anything in the constitution, which by noccssar3' implication bestows any such authority. His view ma' bo sound, but it will attract no particular attention because uobody seems to think any more that there is any restriction in the constitution upon Congress doing whatever it may choose. Once in a wmie tnc umtca otntcs ouprcmo Uourt puts iu a bar on Congressional action, but tho Supremo Court is very slow to reach decisions, and a great deal ma3r be done pending the action of that court. Sonator Payncr is quite right, however, how-ever, when ho insists that Congress would have just as much right io go into any other form of banking business as in tlfo savings part of it. Undoubtedly Undoubt-edly -tho. powor to issue currency for tho pooplo is a form of banking thnt Congress might exercise, but which tho high oracles of financiering havo uniformly uni-formly deplored as putting all forms of business'at the mercy of the mere political politi-cal whims or time servers. Ami yet, tho power is there, and if thsit power should engage in this other form of .banking and its authority to do so is affirmed by tho Supremo Court, then thero would not be very much in the wn' of banking that the Government might not lawfully do. Wo nimgc, however, that it will be found a practical impossibility to establish es-tablish any form of postal savings banks that will be at all satisfactory to the public. Tho restrictions being put upon tho handling of deposits, tho delay de-lay in interest payments, and the tremendous tre-mendous office force necessary to handle this enormous business, aro all likely to combine to brenk tho law down from its own weight. It was admitted in tho discussion of this bill in tho former Congress, that it will bo impossiblo to pay interest quarterly; then it was confessed con-fessed that it would bo impracticable to pay interest somi-annuall'; and tho proposition to pay interest annually seemed rather a gloomy ono to those who were most hopeful of tho benefits of the postal savings S3'stcm. Senator Carter, who is in chargo of the bill, docs not id any wny meet the arguments of thoso who aro opposed to it- He simply rests on the party proposition propo-sition that tho President urgos the passage pas-sage of tho bill in behalf of the Republican Repub-lican party, and that tho Pcpubliean National plnlform had a declaration iu favor of this proposition. But tho National Na-tional 'Republican platform had a deela ration in favor of a just revision of the tariff which Presidont Taft proclaimed iu his enmpaigu speeches to bo. a revision downward. Congress, however, made a revision which is in fact a revision upward, up-ward, and still clnims to have fulfilled the party plotlgc. It may bo a very delicate ethical question to decide whether a revision of Ihe tariff contrary to tha't which was promised is any more of a party dereliction than it would bo for tho parly to fail lo act nt all on Iho postal savings proposition: that is, whether it. is a grcator oflV-nso to do contrary to what is promised, than not lo act at all. II, seems hardly possible that this postal savings bank bill could be enacted in tho present Congress, but thero is no telling what party pressure can do. Tt is easy to fell, however, that a proposition of this kind onaoted as a mere act of partisanship, is not, likely to prove of any special benefit to thi people. This, altogether aside from tho question of whether it is constitutional or not. |