The founder of APS Bank

When I began working, in July 1972, I was working at IlHajja with offices in the Catholic Institute in Floriana and with a printing press in the basement.

Yet this printing press had a different name then: it was the Empire Press, with a long history behind it, beginning from St Paul’s Street as part of the Bank ta San Guzepp or as known before the Unione Cattolica San Giuseppe.

This was the forerunner of today’s APS Bank and this book outlines the meanderings of its history.

The UCSG has been wound up only recently. Its last employee, Fr Joe Brincat, who serves at St John’s and is the brother of Henry Brincat our sports editor, was its very last employee.

This is the first history of UCSG taken not from other sources but directly from the UCSG archives, such as they are, which are here examined for the first time.

The latter part of the nineteenth century (actually even before that) saw a number of philanthropic initiatives developing here and there inspired by the new Catholic social thinking after Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. Actually, some had been begun even earlier – like the Veneranda Sodalita dei Preti to help sick priests who could no longer carry out their pastoral duties.

Intriguingly, some band clubs, then in their first years, became welfare societies for their members. Such were the two band clubs of Valletta (1905), St Michael (Zabbar) in 1906, Hamrun’s St Joseph (1906), Vittoriosa’s Duke of Edinburgh (1908), Floriana’s Vilhena (1911) etc.

Although there existed at this time many commercial banks, there was only one real savings bank, the Government Savings Bank set up in November 1833 with just eight depositors in January 1834.

This bank operated jointly with the Monte di Pieta and in 1848 the two were joined together and taken over by the government.

The first meeting of what was later to be known as UCSG took place at the Oratory of St Philip Neri in the Jesuit church in Valletta on Sunday, 8 May 1910. It was an initiative of the Jesuit priest Fr Michael Vella as part of the Jesuit-run Apostleship of Prayer.

Fr Vella was born in Xaghra, Gozo in 1859, taught in Costantinople and in Greece and then became spiritual director at St Aloysius College. During this time he carried out spiritual duties at the Tas-Samra church in Hamrun. He died in July 1912.

It would seem the first mem- bers were chosen by Fr Vella himself. They were Magistrate Dr Pasquale Frendo Azzopardi, Giuseppe Bencini, Edoardo Asciak Mifsud, Cavaliere Roberto Naudi, Agostino Matrenza, Cavaliere Commendatore Antonio Lanzon, Chierico Arturo Sleigh, Cavaliere Giuseppe Muscat Azzopardi.

It is clear these persons, perhaps because they were chosen, not representatives, were from one side of society. Many did not expect the new society to last long, but it did, thanks to the dynamism of Fr Vella. Members died or resigned and others came in their stead.

It is not that easy to extrapolate the inner workings of the UCSG basing oneself solely on the bare minutes of the meetings. One of the personalities that emerges and that as years go by becomes one of the prime movers of UCSG is Mgr Paolo Galea, born in 1866, who together with Guze Muscat Azzopardi founded the newspaper Il-Habib, later becoming Vicar General and during World War I was one of the organisers of the Cucine dei Poveri to alleviate the misery of so many people then.

The new organization found many obstacles in its way, the chief among them being, in my opinion, getting waylaid by setting up its premises which slowly became a club. This entailed endless discussions at committee level about the bar, about billiards, etc.

It was also recognized at national level and invited to commemorations, the first being a national commemoration in September 1912 or as invited by the Senglea Committee of National Feasts to place a wreath at the monument of Malta Trionfante.

It also took official part in the 1913 international Eucharistic Congress.

Just a few days after the 7 Giugno riots in 1919, the UCSG decided to set up a lending branch, to open evening classes for migrants, to set up a co-operative and to update and reprint the Statute.

A short time later, the UCSG decided to asset up a Widows and Orphans Fund.

As for the co-operative level, this does not seem to have materialised. The committee put off discussing the idea at some later stage.

In early 1948 the UCSG passed into the hands of the Archdiocese of Malta. The UCSG however continued to function. In the 1980s the administration of the UCSG was held by Canon Anton Galea nominated by the archbishop, who presided, the Rev Joseph Brincat (secretary) and Fr Victor Grech Dimech as member.

The author then focuses on the varied aspects of the UCSG’s activities.

The savings bank

Originally, the Cassia di Risparmio aimed to help the farmers. The interest paid by the Apostleship of Prayer Savings Bank was actually two and a half per cent so that when the depositors’ money was placed at the Banco di Malta the APSB was making a profit of 1 per cent irrespective of whether the amounts belonging to individual depositors was large or small.

This account is based mainly on the existing records of the minutes of the Central Committee. Unfortunately, therefore, we do not get, if not accidentally, the real story of the many people who deposited their money with APSB. Word of mouth says thousands of small depositors included also bar maids who deposited their money with APSB.

The bank had a whole network of persons, mostly priests, who received the deposits in many churches around Malta. The network decreased in time. At one point there were 14 parishes in the scheme and 43 out of 68 outworkers came from the clergy. In 1911 however the archbishop asked what would be the position of the clergy if APSB went bankrupt. Over the years, the amount of funds deposited with APSB rose to spend something like £32,000 in a year mostly as pensions to the subscribers. But with the advent of World War II, revenues dwindled and the structure broke down and in November 1947 the responsibility for APSB was handed over to the archdiocese and later became APS Bank.

Helping migrants

The UCSG was not just a savings bank. Even before the creation of the Emigrants Commission (or rather it foreshadowed it) as from 1910 UCSG was involved in helping Maltese to emigrate at that time to the US focusing on ensuring the spiritual care of the migrants. Sometimes UCSG gave financial help to prospective migrants.

Mutual help society

As from 1911, UCSG became also a mutual help society such as helping members when they fell sick, was hospitalized, needed medical consultation. Obviously, this involved UCSG in a lot of work to check claims, to dole out the meagre funds, and to be careful against possible fraud. The records of the Central Committee are filled with details regarding claims, regarding organizing the doctor support, handling a pension fund with all it entailed. The club But what ultimately absorbed a lot of the UCSG’s time and efforts was the management and the vicissitudes of the club. In October 1911, the committee agreed with the setting up of a ‘Casino Popolare’. The first premises was Palazzo Caraffa which needed quite a lot of repairs. It became the venue for a number of conferences, even for non-members. The activities were carefully planned so as not to coincide with sermons or religious activities. The club hosted concerts and readings as well as receptions for non-members.

In particular, much time and effort was absorbed in dealing with the vicissitudes of the bar or botteghin – receiving offers, choosing the bar director, dealing with issues relating to the bar. At one point, the barman was also the billiard marker and this arrangement seems to have held.

The club also held evening classes and the first teacher was Prof. Carmelo Psaila known by us as Dun Karm, the national poet, who also wrote some hymns for UCSG. Another contributor was Maestro Paolino Vassallo who wrote The Work- ers’ Hymn for UCSG.

The casino also housed a reading room including copies of local papers, although some issues were sometimes censored.

The casino also had its theatre hall. A theatrical concert was held every Sunday but women were not allowed to act on the stage. A piano was even loaned by the Teatro Reale for the inauguration.

In 1912 cinema entered the casino through the loan of a ‘Macchina da Cinematografo’, at first with silent films and as from the 1920s with ‘talkies’.

As from 1914, UCSG moved to a house in St Paul Street at a rent of £80 per annum. The UCSG club is just a few doors away from today’s APS Bank facing St Paul’s Church.

Il-Habib and Dun Karm, the printing press

In 1911 the idea was mooted for a Maltese language periodical to be published weekly. The first number of Il-Habib appeared on 1 February 1912. 663 issues would be published till 1928 with Guze Muscat Azzopardi as its first editor. It was while collaborating with Il-Habib that Dun Karm started writing poetry in Maltese.

Il-Habib, a Catholic periodical, found itself involved in a controversy involving Manwel Dimech. On 23 May 1912 it included a letter by a Dun Anton who referring to Dimech’s book quoted from St Matthew “It is better for one man to die for the people.” Dimech accused Muscat Azzopardi of inciting people to kill him. But World War I broke out and Dimech was exiled by the British government.

The paper reported on national events. It reported the meetings of the National Assembly of 7th June 1919 and the proclamation by Lord Plumer after the riots. It then followed this by a serialized version of the Commission of Inquiry on the Sette Giugno riots. But a few years later the publication was discontinued: after Guze Muscat Azzopardi resigned from editor, the paper became more religious oriented. It was succeeded by Lehen isSewwa.

In 1921 it was suggested that UCSG acquires its own printing press. This was the Empire Press owned by John Critien which was purchased for £2200 and it was later installed in the UCSG premises. Il-Habib, previously printed at Giovanni Muscat began to be printed at the Empire Press.

UCSG was quite active on the national front. On 23 March 1918 it wrote to the government to highlight how the poor classes were being negatively affected by the cost of living. UCSG also took part, with continuous internal controversies, in the very first TUC. It also took part in the national debate pre- and after the Sette Giugno riots

Unfortunately, the book is very sparse on details on the later development of APS Bank till the present day, even though properly speaking it is outside the scope of the book. That is another story worth researching and telling.

■ Noel Grima