Her Majesty's Mails

To these six principal departments may now be added that for the management of the new Post-Office Savings' Banks. Like the Money-order Office, it occupies a separate building, in St. Paul's Churchyard. The Savings' Bank Department keeps a personal account with every depositor. It acknowledges the receipt of every single deposit, and upon the requisite notice being furnished to the office, it sends out warrants authorizing postmasters to pay withdrawals. Each year the savings' bank-book of each depositor is sent here for examination, and at the same time the interest accruing is calculated and allowed. The correspondence with postmasters and the public on any subject connected with the banks in question is managed entirely by this department. The already-existing machinery of the Post-Office has been freely called into operation, and the business of the new banks has increased the work of almost all the other branches, especially those of the Receiver and Accountant-General's and the Money-order Offices. Through the former all the investments are received, and all remittances to postmasters for the repayment of deposits are made; while the surplus revenue goes from that office direct to that of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. Again, and as another instance of our meaning, the Money-order Office is required to undertake the examination of the general savings' bank account of each provincial postmaster. The staff of the Savings' Bank Office in London is not yet complete, nor will it be until the complete effect of the new on the old savings' bank system be seen.[146] At present, it comprises a controller, an assistant-controller, a principal clerk, ten first-class clerks (four of upper and six of lower section), fifteen second-class clerks, with a number of third-class clerks, and six messengers.