These remarks applied to the Canada of 1870 and previous years. There were then, as now, the two kinds of banks - the large concerns, with branches in different parts of the country, and the small institutions, with operations confined to a particular place or section. Though several of the last named class have since been organized and successfully conducted, the tendency is unmistakably towards the complete absorption of the banking business of the country by banks with numerous branches. Progress towards that point has been at a greatly accelerated pace in the last few years. Of the localized banks, some have stopped, some have been absorbed by large banks, and others have saved themselves by broadening the area of their operations. Those possessing but a single office, like the national banks of the United States, have had a hard struggle to maintain their ground. They were never very numerous in the Dominion; not one now remains. Banks with a few branches, and these contained in a restricted area, were more in evidence. They have been disappearing or changing character.

Large Demand For Men

At the time of which Professor Shortt wrote the branches of the banks were found nearly altogether in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia; and they were but sparsely scattered in those Provinces. In the last decade a phenomenal expansion has occurred in all directions - the offices in the older provinces being multiplied, and hundreds of new establishments being opened west of Lake Superior and on the Pacific slope. Concurrently, the gross business or turnover of the banks and the totals of their balance sheets have increased by leaps and bounds.

To handle the larger business and to man the new offices have called for a great enlargement of the banking staffs. At the annual meetings some bankers have confessed that they were unable to open as many branches as they wished because they could not find the managers and the clerks they needed. In the effort to fill this demand juniors have been rapidly promoted, men imported from outside businesses and professions, and bank clerks brought from England and Scotland. In view of the circumstances, it was thought that a detailed description of the various features and principles of the present-day Canadian banking practice, the reasons for the regulations contained in the codes, the approved methods of training of juniors and of developing expert bankers, the mechanism of head office government and supervision, and other matters connected therewith, would have interest for banking and other readers in Canada and outside.

The author aims at presenting the interior working of the Canadian bank in a manner that will appeal to outsiders as well as to the clerks and officers.

Some Comparisons

Before proceeding to the matter of the education of the junior officer, prior to and after he joins the profession, some space will be devoted to descriptions of the general character of the business transacted by the banks in Canada, its peculiarities and points of difference from the banking business of other countries, notably of the United States and of England and Scotland, and of the process of forming or organizing a new bank in the Dominion, as prescribed by the Bank Act.

We have seen that, in the old days, the business of the banks consisted mainly in facilitating "the gathering of produce over wide areas, and the shipping of it over long distances, with a corresponding process in the supplying of manufactured goods." This work still constitutes a very large part of the banking operations. Of course, with the growth of the country, and the heavy increase in the output of natural products and of manufactures, the connection of the banks with these forms of activity has largely increased. But the growth of population and of wealth has compelled them to undertake a great deal of business of a different kind. Every year their operations become more complex.