OCR Text |
Show 'depends on savings INDUSTRIAL WORLD GETS CAP. ITAL FROM WAGE EARNERS. Workers, Through Medium of Banks, Own Securities of Concerns Which Employ Labor. The savings banks of the country are the collectors of capital Into them the people put their funds and It is through them that enterprises, bent on enlarging the Industrial ac-Uvities ac-Uvities of the country, secure the funds with which to do tins wort The savings thinks of the country hold ,n their vaults securities approx.ma - i lug $10,000,000,000 in value. It will thus be seen that the savers of he country, who are largely from the ( wage-earning class, own the securitie, which represent the capita invest ments or the concerns which pay wages. This degree of mutuality be. tween capital and labor is too frequently fre-quently overlooked. It grows without saying that if the savings bank depositors of the couo try should undertake simultaneous!! to withdraw from the banks the funds they have on deposit, they would wreck not only the banks but the country. Counting all kinds of money and currency in the country there If a trifle over $4,000,000,000. This in-eludes in-eludes gold, silver, greenbacks, gold and silver certificates, national bank notes and federal reserve notes. The deposits in savings banks alone are two and one-naif times as great as the total amount of money of all kinds in the country. The difference between these two amounts marks to some extent ex-tent the degree to which credit is utilized and credit is measured by the confidence of the people in the financial finan-cial system. The wealth that reposes in a bank, therefore, is not in the form of monej but in the form of securities which represent capital investments. If the country is to go on expanding commercially and increasing its industrial indus-trial activity it is necessary that there be constant additions to the capital. In other words the deposits in the savings sav-ings banks must be constantly enlarged en-larged it Industrial and commercial progress is to be maintained. Before the great war in Europe started this country had access to the surplus funds which were produced by the thrifty peoples of Europe. That source of supply has been cut off and it is doubtful if It will be reopened for , many years to come. There has been an enormous destruction of capital as the result of the war and when peace comes the belligerent nations will have their powers of thrift severely tested by efforts to replace what has been destroyed. It is, therefore, incumbent in-cumbent upon the people of this coun- try to produce by the process of saving sav-ing the funds which will be needed for the capitalization of all sorts of enterprises enter-prises which will mark the develop- ment and progress of the country and t give employment to its labor. |