Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

122 HISTORY OF THE BANKa gloomy year. The tide of rising prices for urban real estatenow began to ebb, and during the next two years put aneffective stop to the insane speculation which had been rampantin so many cities of North America, and it was then discoveredthat the readjustment of values had profoundly affected theposition of thousands of business men.The harvests of 1891 and 1892 were good, and althoughproduce prices were low, there seemed to be some improvementin business in Canada early in 1893. Great events werehappening elsewhere in the financial world. The bankingsystems of Italy and Australia broke down almost completely;and in the United States the business interests were wrestlingwith the silver question. 1 Then came the financial collapsein the United States. About 600 National, State, savingsand private banks, and mortgage companies, with liabilitiesof $170,000,000, suspended payment, and at the close of theyear less than 200 of these had resumed business. Bradstreetsreported the failures in general business for the first ninemonths of 1893 as numbering 11,174, with liabilities of$325,000,000. Many American railways passed into the handsof receivers. Prior to and during the panic large numbers ofAmericans, many of them with international reputations forwealth, came to Canada, seeking to borrow money. In theaddress of the president of the bank at the annual meetingin 1894, the following passage occurs: "During the summerand autumn of 1893 the applications for loans from privateindividuals and firms, industrial companies, municipal corporations,banks, and in fact every kind of business concern inthe United States, from the western States to the Atlantic seaboard,were simply without number, and those who came werebut the select few, who felt because of the sufficient securitythey had to offer, and the high rates they were prepared to pay,their wants would surely be supplied. As a rule the answerfrom all Canadian banks was the same, and it was that atthe moment they were taking care of their own country."See*note on .page 108.