nicipalities which issue bonds for such purposes as
schools, roads, and public utilities, by creating a more open and
regular market to small investors than now is provided for such
securities. This might somewhat reduce the rate of interest and there
would be a gain divided between taxpayers and lenders.

The general plan and principles of local building and loan
associations might well be extended to groups of rural cooeperators,
enabling them to make loans to their members; and to groups of small
investors, permitting them to hold real estate mortgages and bonds and
stocks of corporations, free from taxation other than that paid on the
wealth itself. Members of such organizations could get a higher income
on their investments than a savings bank could pay, and with greater
security than if each attempted to save and invest by himself.[15]

Savings institutions are necessarily also lending institutions. In
this chapter they have been looked at mainly from the saver's (the
lender's) standpoint, though their service to the borrower is of
cooerdinate importance. In the case of building and loan associations
this feature is most apparent. Later, the problem of the agricultural
borrower will receive further consideration.

[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, chs. 9 and 10.]

[Footnote 2: See Vol. I, pp. 285-290 for the analysis of saving from
the individual standpoint; and pp. 482-499 for its relation to general
economic conditions.]

[Footnote 3: See Vol. I, p. 484.]

[Footnote 4: See above, ch. 9, sec. 7.]

[Footnote 5: E.g., Babson Statistical Organization, Brookmire Economic
Service, Moody Manual Co., Moody Corporation Service.]

[Footnote 6: See Vol. I, p. 318.]

[Footnote 7: Report of the Comptroller of the Currency. Not all of
these are mutual. Statistics, moreover, include in some cases (e.g.,
California) the savings deposits of commercial banks but not the
number of such banks, and in other cases (Michigan) some banks that do
chiefly a commercial business. The line of demarcation between savings
banks and savings departments of commercial banks cannot be sharply
drawn. The Comptroller of the Currency reported in 1914 in a different
form the amount of savings deposits and of time certificates
of deposits in _all_ kinds of banks as the enormous sum of
$8,675,000,000.]

[Footnote 8: In the last twenty-three years, on the average, seven
savings banks a year have failed, the annual excess of liabilities
over assets