Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

224 HISTORY OF THE BANKof disastrous fires took place, one of which devastated a largepart of the wholesale section of Toronto, and resulted in a lossof approximately twelve million dollars.A month before the annual meeting held in January, 1905,a new stock issue was made, increasing the paid-up capital to$10,000,000. The new stock was allotted to shareholders ofrecord on January 12, 1905, at 140. Holdings of less than sevenshares were disregarded, the allotment being made on thebasis of one share to every 6^ old shares.The work of eliminating old forms of office drudgeryled about this time to the introduction of adding machines,the use of which has since become so general. From thestart the managementby the use of machines must be checked. Further regulationswere also devised to facilitate the handling of the ever-growingvolume of the head office correspondence with the branches.It was ordered that everything intended for the head officeor any of its numerous departments should henceforth beforwarded in one envelope; but that correspondence for theinsisted that all calculations madegeneral manager should be enclosed in a separate envelope,properly addressed. In this way it was possible to facilitatethe task of distributing to the various departments the multifariousreturns and statements received from the branches.At this time a strong effort, in which The Canadian Bankof Commerce took the lead, was made to increase the useof bank money orders. The Canadian banks adopted the samescale of rates of commission on sales of money orders as wascharged by the express companies, and made mutual concessionsby agreeing to abolish the commission which had previouslybeen charged for cashing the money orders of rivalinstitutions. After a few years' experience, however, theformer plan of allowing a commission in such cases was resumed.In July, money orders for use in Canada and the UnitedStates were for the first time issued by the London, England,branch on special forms devised for the purpose. This hassince become an established part of the business of that office.