Part 5
All this formidable account keeping is done strictly day by day. Three hundred employés are working at it constantly. Special employés who have acquired an extraordinary ability, verify the signatures on each occasion. The type signatures are classed alphabetically. Current-accounts are drawn up on loose sheets and not in books: this is considered a real progress for books are soon in tatters. On each occasion an extract of the account is sent to the party interested: every transfer entails the sending extracts to both parties interested. Envelopes with their names and addresses printed are classified in pigeon holes so as to be easily found. I join to this explanation some extracts from typical accounts. One shows a banking made by a post office, the other a transfer made between adherents to the _clearing_ system. (Fig. V.)
The centralisation of all this vast account-keeping at the Central Office of the Savings Bank at Vienna is the basis of the system, the pledge of the regularity of the service and of the certainty of the control. Notwithstanding the inevitable complexity of operations and accounts, this complexity does not entail any really prejudicial delays[L]. The increasing figure of the operations is a proof of the growing favour of the public and is a testimony to the usefulness of the institution beyond all argument. The coefficient of error has been very slight and fraud has not been as yet able to succeed in causing trouble in the working of this admirable machinery of circulation.
The Central Office is put every day in relation with 4,000 post offices, which transmit to it packets containing the _empfang erlag schein_, the claims and all the documents which have been brought them. The unfastening of this immense correspondence is simplified by machinery. All these documents are enclosed in large envelopes of uniform dimensions so that they can be opened by packets, in cutting off their edges by means of large knives working mechanically. (Fig. VI.)
The Postal Office of Vienna prepares annually the list of all the possessors of cheque books who are adherents to the clearing service; this list is printed and can be obtained by subscribers with the supplements published at irregular intervals for one florin a year.
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Belehrung für den Postbeamten.[2]
1. Alle Einlagen auf Empfangscheine sind in diese Tagesrechnung einzutragen, ebenso alle Rückzahlungen, welche ohne Vorweisung eines Einlagebüchels auf Grund der vereinigten Drucksorte Nr. 6-8 zu leisten sind.
2. Die Eintragung hat genau dem Vordrucke entsprechend zu geschehen.
3. Anzahl und Gesammtbetrag der Einlagen und Rückzahlungen sind nach Abschluss der Tagesrechnung in die correspondirenden Rubriken des Tagessummariums zu übertragen. Die Anzahl der zu dieser Tagesrechnung gehörigen Erlagscheine und Zahlungsanweisungen ist am Schlusse der Rechnung auszusetzen und in der Beilagenliste anzumerken.
4. Die Tagesrechnung wird nur dann an das k. k. Postsparcassen-Amt eingesendet, wenn eine Einlage oder Rückzahlung in derselben zu verzeichnen ist. =Nur am letzten eines jeden Monates ist stets eine Tagesrechnung einzusenden, ohne Rücksicht, ob eine Eintragung stattgefunden hat oder nicht.=
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+-------------+------------+-----------------+----------------------+ | 1 | 2 | 3[5] | 4 | |Nummer des[3]| Betrag[4] | Ausstellungstag |[6]Name des Adressaten| | Contos |-------+----| der |der Zahlungsanweisung | | | fl. | kr.|Zahlungsanweisung| | +-------------+-------+----+-----------------+----------------------+ | | | | | | +-------------+-------+----+-----------------+----------------------+ | | | | | | +-------------+-------+----+-----------------+----------------------+ | | | | | | +-------------+-------+----+-----------------+----------------------+ | [7] | | | [8]Anzahl | | | |Gesammtbetrag| | | der | | | | der | | | Rückzahlungen | | | |Rückzahlungen| | | | | | +-------------+-------+----+-----------------+----------------------+
[1] Daily account of repayments in the cheque service.
[2] Instruction for the post office official: 1. In this daily account must be entered all the deposits made upon acknowledgement of receipt as well as all the repayments made without presentation of deposit-book on the ground of the united document N^o 6-8; 2. The entry must be absolutely conformable to the printed text; 3. The number and the total sum of the deposits and the repayments are to be entered after the closing of the daily account in the corresponding columns of the summary of the day. The number of the pay-cheques and the orders for repayment which belong to this daily account is to be set forth at the end of the account and to be noted on the supplementary list; 4. The daily account is only to be sent to the Post Office Savings Bank when there is a deposit or a repayment to be entered. _Only at the end of each month this daily account must be sent whether there be an entry or not._
[3] Number of the current account.
[4] Amount.
[5] Date of issue of the order for repayment.
[6] Name of the person to whom the order for repayment is to be sent.
[7] Total sum of the repayments.
[8] Number of the repayments.]
This list is the expression as it were, of a conscious agreement of wills on a more and more extended scale in a common work of reciprocity.
The all round figure which sums up for the service during 1895, the total amount of operations relating to the credit and debit of holders of accounts in the Postal Savings Bank of Vienna is 2,970,170,049 florins. It will be interesting to learn what have been the expenses which have arisen from such a vast amount of business.
The account of the financial administration of the service of cheques and _clearing_ makes the administrative expenses 899,356 florins, that is three-hundredths of a florin, for every 100 florins of business[M]. The average business done for each possessor of a cheque book is 100,000 florins, and the average charges of the service per person have been about 30 florins.
Going back ten years it is seen that when in 1886 the amount reached 944,997,612 florins, the total expense was 620,247 florins, or six-hundredths of a florin for every 100 florins of business done. The operations averaged about 90,000 florins to each holder of a cheque book and the charges 44 florins each person. The law, in accordance with which the general expenses are relatively reduced by the increase in the figure of business done, receives here a fresh verification.
Such is the summary explanation of the organisation and working of the cheque and clearing system instituted thirteen years ago at the Postal Savings Bank of Vienna.
It is based on the centralisation at Vienna of the accounts of depositors holding cheque books and on the almost absolute perfectness of the regularity and precision with which all those interested are every time fully informed of their position of the Central Bank, and, in consequence, of the extent of the credit they have at their command. This institution implies the free adhesion under conditions fixed by law of all the depositors at the Savings Bank and the right of each to withdraw as he thinks proper. The institution therefore works on the ground of stipulated contract, but its elasticity is seen in the perpetually widening extension of its operations and its making way in every class of society and in every one of the professions.
Its realization under the international form, for we give this character to an agreement between the Savings Banks of Austria and Hungary, is only a question of time, and the new experiment will prepare the way for a new enlargement of the system.
The basis of the institution is monetary, it differs in this respect in no way from all the other modern institutions of credit and of balancing one account against the other; but the saving of money is ever on the increase. Within the monetary circulation is developed a circulation which if it remains still subordinate to the monetary circulation is not inevitably enchained to it. Our collective effort tends to break for ever this bond of subordination. The papers which will follow will be a contribution to that work.
FOOTNOTES:
[H] The account-books of _Empfang erlagscheine_ are used as instruments in this first class of operations.
[I] Rückzahlungen auf grund von checks, zahlbar an den überbringer bei des Cassa des Postsparcassen Amtes.
[J] Rückzahlungen an dritte personen durch zahlungsanweisungen des Postsparcassen Amtes.
[K] Auszahlung von beträgen an dritte personen nittelst postanweisungen.
[L] To accomplish operations in the remotest part of Dalmatia, five or six days is the maximum required.
[M] A kreutzer is charged for posting a sum to the credit of an adherent, but no charge is made on the debit side.
APPENDIX
I
Law of the 28^{th} of May 1882
_with reference to the introduction of Postal Savings Banks in the kingdoms and lands represented in the Imperial Council. (R. G. Bl.[N] N^o 56.) with the alterations made by the law of the 19^{th} of November 1897. (R. G. Bl. N^o 133.)_
With the consent of the two Houses of the Imperial Council I will to order as follow:
ARTICLE 1.
Under State administration and guarantee there will be founded at Vienna a State Savings Bank, under the control of the Minister of Commerce and belonging to the jurisdiction of the Postal Administration, with the title «Post Office Savings Bank».
The sphere of activity, the organisation and the civil service of the Post Office Savings Bank will be fixed by means of ordinances.
Post Offices in the kingdom and lands represented in the Imperial Council will be appointed by the Minister of Commerce to serve as receiving offices of the Post Office Savings Bank.
To the Post Office Savings Bank will belong the management and execution of the business assigned to it by this law; in which business it will represent before the public the administration of the State.
To give advice as well as to make proposals in the business relating to the Postal Savings Banks, a special Council will be constituted.
Regulations as to the composition of this special Council as well as the determination of its special sphere of action will follow by way of ordinance.
ARTICLE 2.
The Post Office Savings Bank will receive savings deposits paid into the Post Offices, and by the agency of the Post Offices will pay back the deposits when reclaimed.
ARTICLE 3.
All deposits in excess of the current needs of the Post Office Savings Bank are to be profitably invested.
Such profitable investments of the savings-deposits will be made by the purchase of the Austrian Consolidated Bonds bearing interest.
ARTICLE 4.
From the profit of the invested deposits is to be defrayed the interests on the deposits, as well as the whole expenses, administrative or otherwise.
As long as the profit of the funded capital of the deposits is not sufficient to pay the interest of the savings-deposits and to cover the expenses of the administration, the deficit as well as the costs of the establishment of the institution will be advanced by the State as a charge on the Postal Budget.
These advances are to be restored without interest, to the Postal Budget, out of the surplus appearing at the close of the administrative year.
The surplus remaining over after the entire liquidation of the above named advances is to be employed in the formation of a reserve fund.
ARTICLE 5[O].
The receiving office (Post Office) in which a first deposit is made, gives to the party who makes the deposit, a deposit book, in which each amount paid in, each amount paid back and the interest added to the capital is to be entered. Each subsequent payment can be made in any receiving office (Post Office), the amount being entered in the deposit book.
That person is to be considered the depositor on whose behalf the deposit is made.
The deposit-book is to be delivered gratuitously and is stamp free.
The Post Office Savings Bank will open an account for each depositor.
ARTICLE 6[P].
The deposit-book is issued in the name of the depositor and is to contain the notes necessary in forming a judgement of his identity, as well as the signature of the party who makes the first deposit.
A depositor who cannot write will have to bring with him a trustworthy man, who will have to attest the identity of the depositor and to sign the deposit-book in his stead.
An assignment of a deposit-book to another person, is only to be accepted by the Post Office Savings Bank when the act of assignment has taken place at a Post Office entrusted with Post Office Savings Bank business.
This being done, the assignee is to be regarded as the proprietor of the deposit-book. (Art. 21, § 3.)
Minors are entitled to pay in sums as savings and to receive repayments back provided their legal representatives have entered no written objection at the Post Office Savings Bank.
In case of the loss of the deposit-book, a duplicate is, after carrying out the proceedings prescribed by article 14, to be issued.
Whoever causes two or more deposit-books to be issued loses the interests on the capital entered in the second and in any subsequent books.
If the whole amount of the deposits in the two or more deposit-books, that a depositor has caused to be issued, is over the sum of a 1,000 florins, the depositor loses that part of the capital which exceeds 1,000 florins.
The Minister of Commerce is empowered on well considered reasons to be indulgent with reference to the loss of capital, which, in conformity with the regulations occurs to surplus deposits.
Post Office servants are forbidden, except to their superiors, to give any information whatever to anyone, as to the names of depositors, or the amount of their deposits.
ARTICLE 7[Q].
Each single payment must amount to at least 50 kreutzers or a multiple of 50 kreutzers.
The balance in favour of a depositor can at no time amount to more than 1,000 florins including deposits paid in and interest added to the capital.
Deposits of 50 kreutzers can be made in postage stamps, or in special postal savings stamps as soon as such stamps are issued by the Minister of Commerce. These stamps are to be fastened on forms supplied gratuitously.
ARTICLE 8[R].