Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

216 HISTORY OF THE BANKreasons for suggesting this change were, as stated at the meetingby the general manager, that the holding of the annual meetingin June had been found to interfere with the proper supervisionof the bank's business at distant branches, as it necessitatedthe general manager and assistant general managerremaining in Toronto at a season of the year when they oughtto be free to visit the branches. With the extension of thebank's business to the Pacific Coast and to other countries thisdisadvantage was increasingly felt.The growth in the volume of the head office correspondencewith the branches led in 1901 to a change in the form of theletters in order to facilitate the task of handling the multifariousmatters with which the correspondence dealt. Previouslythe general rule had been that a branch manager woulddeal with each subject about which he had to write in aseparate paragraph of the one letter. The system theninaugurated, as subsequently developed, provides a separatenumbered letter for each subject, and special forms for variouspurposes, all of which immeasurably facilitate the handlingof the correspondence of a large organization which is dividedinto departments, each dealing with a more or less definitedivision of the work. The changes that less than two decadeshave made in office routine are brought forcibly to mindby a circular issued by the head office suggesting that allthe branches should provide themselves with typewriters,and use them for all official correspondence. Until then ithad been the custom of many managers to write their correspondenceby hand, with consequent loss of time at both ends.The reason for introducing the change was that the first stephad been taken towards dividing the business of the bank intodistricts supervised by superintendents, to whom a large partis now addressed. Inof the head office correspondenceJanuary, 1901, a resident inspector was appointed at Vancouver,to ensure prompt dealing with matters affecting brancheson the Pacific Coast. The change in organization helpedto relieve the pressure on the head office in Toronto, though