Second Memoir on Pauperism, Post 12

The ideas that I explain are supported not only by reason, but by experience.  Why does the government, which, lately, has shown real solicitude for the material interests of the indigent classes not benefit from this useful experiment?  What is the reason, far from promoting the union of the savings banks and pawnshops, behind the government's resistance to efforts made towards that end?  I only understand it with difficulty.  If one ever comes to really attract all the savings of the poor into the hands of the state, the ruin of the poor and of the state itself cannot fail to occur.  Would the government believe its interests lay in the close connection between itself and the existence of the working classes such that one cannot destroy the government without ruining the working classes as well?  I cannot believe in so dangerous an enterprise.  In my opinion, I see in the combination I have described, the most powerful way that can be used to retain the advantages of the savings banks while avoiding some of the dangers.  I say some, because it is evident that the remedy proposed could, in a given time, become insufficient.

If the administrators of the savings banks can only use the savings of the poor to lend on security, this use of the money is limited and the money not being limited, a day will come when one would be obligated to refuse some new depositors, which would be a great misfortune, because a continual doubt would enter the minds of the poor about the placement of their savings and, consequently, a great temptation not to save.

I would therefore not want the state to definitively close its savings banks to the poor.  I would allow the laws to remain as they are at present; I would only allow the savings banks to pour their money into the Treasury when the pawnshops are not offering a better option.  In this way, one would have all the advantages of the institution while escaping most of the disadvantages.

But this is not yet enough.  Inasmuch as the poor will deposit their money only on the condition of being able to withdraw it at will and inasmuch as easy and sure alternatives will not have been offered, one will not come to results that are at the same time great and certain.

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End of the second memoir