‘That all persons in the time of their health and youth, while they are able to work and spare it, should lay up some small inconsiderable part of their earnings as a deposit in save hands, to lie as a store in a bank, to relieve them, if by age or accident they should come to be disabled or incapacitated to provide for themselves; and that if God bless them, that neither they nor theirs come to need it, the surplus may be employed to relieve such as shall.’

‘I know well that the problems that we denounce for some time and continue to denounce, are born more from the lack of implementing laws than the laws themselves. However, we nonetheless must recognize that certain alterations and reforms are indispensible, such as the creation of the Caixa Econômica e Monte Socorro.’

‘The function of a savings bank, in fact, is not to serve as an institution for investing money. Its business is to enable people to put money aside and even to build up a little capital. But when this capital has been formed, if the depositors wish to invest it – that is to say, to make a profitable use of it – they have merely to withdraw it: the rôle of the savings bank is ended and it rests with other institutions such as we have already studied in dealing with banks and credit establishments, to take charge of it.’