r But the disposition to accumulate,' as far as men are wholly deprived of the means of accumulation, is out of the 'question; for either it is wholly inca pable of existing, or exists to no manner of purpose. T Of the labouring people, however, who have fa milies, all but those of whom the families are uncom monly small, or who possess uncommon advantages, are, according to the principle of population, either in a state of starvation, or upon the very brink of it, and have nothing to accumulate.
The unmarried part of the population, therefore, those who have no families, or those who have very small ones, are those alone to whom the institution of savings bank.; can present any motives whatsoever. The question what are the effects which will be produced upon society by the motives which it pre sents to this reduced part of the population ? That it will increase to a certain extent the dis position to accumulate, may naturally be expected. To how great an extent, general principles afford us no means of very accurately foreseeing. We must wait for experience to determine. In the meantime, we know that single persons are for the most part young ; and that youth is not the season when the pleasures of the present moment are most easily vanquished by those of the future. The training of the human mind must be more skilful, and more moral to a vast degree, before this salutary power will belong to any considerable portion of the youth in any class of the population, especially in the least instructed of all.
Let us next inquire the tendency which it will possess, whatever the degree in which it may be ex pected to exist.
In the first place, it will produce an abstinence from such hurtful pleasures as are attended with ex pence. Under this description is included the plea sure of intoxicating liquors, and no other possibly whatsoever. There is hardly any other' indulgence on which any portion, worth regarding, of the earn ings of the poor is bestowed, which can at all deserve the name of hurtful, or from which there would be any virtue in abstaining, if the means of obtaining it were enjoyed in sufficient abundance. To this, then, the moral effect of savings banks may be supposed to be very nearly confined. But assuredly this, if it can be produced in any considerable degree, must be regarded as an effect of no ordinary importance.
Passing from the moral effects, we come to the accumulation which it may be in the power of the unmarried part of the population to make. To this,. and what may spring out of it, all the remaining ef fects of savings banks are evidently confined.
A part of the unmarried population will make ac cumulations, and undoubtedly they ought, if pos sible, to be provided with the means of doing so. Let us suppose that the greatest part of them pro fit by those means. What consequences are we able to foresee? Of unmarried persons there are few who are not looking forward to the married state, and few by whom, sooner or later, it is not entered. As soon as persons of the lower class are married, or, at any rate, as soon as they have a certain number of children, their powers' of accumulation cease. But there is a previous hoard : What becomes of it ? It is either whollir expended, at the time of marriage, upon the furnishing of a house ; or it is not.
If it is wholly expended upon the furnishing of a house, it contributes to present enjoyment, like any other expense whatsoever; like that, for example, of a fine coat ; and forms no longer a provision against a day of adversity and the evils of want.
Let us suppose that it is not wholly expended upon the furnishing of a house, but that a portion, at least, of it remains. This, it will be said, is reserved as a provision against want ; and of this the beneficial effects may be reckoned sure. But abstracting from extraordinary cases of bad health, least common in the earliest stage of the married life, and other ex traordinary accidents, the first pressure will arise from the increase of the family. After that number of children is born, which exhausts the earnings of the father, the birth of another child produces the miseries of want. If there is no fund remaining from former accumulations, hardship introduces death, and the amount of the population is thus, upon the whole, kept don to the level of the food. If there is fund remaining froin former accumulations, it will now of necessity be consumed ; and by its consump tion will enable the family to go on a little longer ; to rear a . child or two more. But the number of children reared was before as great as there was food to maintain. If a greater number is raised, there is an excess of population, who bid against one another for employment, and lower the wages of labour. Already, the great mass of the population were in a state of unavoidable misery from the lowness of wages. An increase of poverty is now brought upon them; and their situation is rendered more deplorable than it was before. It is impossible not to consider this as one of the effects, which a fund accumulated before marriage, by the laborious part of the community, has a tendency to produce. And this is a tendency altogether noxious.