Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

1867 TO 1901 77much as a large proportion of their loans were based directly orindirectly on this industry. Later in the year bankruptciesbecame more and more frequent, numbering 1,968 in 1875, asagainst 966 in 1874. It is evident also that the larger andstronger firms had commenced to succumb, for the liabilities ofinsolvents in 1875 amounted to nearly $29,000,000, as comparedwith about $7,700,000 in 1874.Agriculture was not soseriously affected as lumbering, and helped to save the situation,but the banks necessarily suffered by the depreciation ofthe securities they held, and their real estate holdings tendedto increase. Current business contracted sharply, but fortunatelymost of the Canadian chartered banks had accumulatedsufficient reserves to enable them to weather the storm.The experience of The Canadian Bank of Commerceduring these years of reaction may now be told. The netprofits for the twelve months ending June 28, 1873, were$969,159, and from this date on until 1877 they showed asteady decline,falling to $453,920 in the latter year,or lessthan half the amount earned five years previously. Thenote circulation also declined from $2,519,884 in 1873 to$1,365,828 in 1877, after which there was a steady if slowincrease in both these items. The principal other items ofthe annual statements for these two years are given below:June 28, 1873 June 30, 1877Deposits $ 6,073,103 $ 7,583,219Current loans 13,327,507 12,464,531Total assets 16,657,555 17,707,194The dividend of eight per cent, per annum which hadbeen paid from the very commencement of business was increasedto ten per cent, in 1874, but reduced again to eightper cent, in the second half of 1875. After 1877 a turn camein the tide of the bank's affairs, and the next few years showedsteady if small increases in most items of the statement.Profits were on the up-grade, but it was not until 1902,when the business taken over from the Bank of BritishColumbia had been assimilated, that the record of 1873 was