Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

240 HISTORY OF THE BANKaccept notes of the bank in payment. The Fernie situationwas soon restored to a normal basis, but the wording of thedodger led to the circulation of a story, which appeared insome newspapers on the Pacific Coast, to the effect that thedirectors of The Canadian Bank of Commerce had lost tenmillion dollars in speculation on Wall Street. Most of thenewspapers in other parts of the country were wise enoughnot to publish the story, and it soon died out.A more serious attack on the policy which had savedCanada from the deplorable consequences of a financial panic in1907 was that made on the bank in the House of Commons inMarch, 1908. The attack was supposed to be inspired bypersonal feeling against the late Senator Cox, who had beenpresident of the bank and was still one of its directors. Itwas charged that the bank was a gambling institution,this assertion being based on a garbled report of certainevidence given by Senator Cox, as president of the CanadaLife Assurance Company, before an Insurance Commissionwhich had held a widespread investigation some time previously.Subsequently, however, on being made acquaintedwith the facts, the member who brought the charge withdrewit and made the amende honorable.It may here be pointed out that attacks on the Canadianbanking system almost invariably arise at periodswhen it is necessary in the interests of financial stabilityfor the banks to restrain the speculative public. The verymethods by which the financial resources of the countryare conserved tend to provoke resentment among thosewhose plans,if allowed free play, would be likely to involvethemselves and others in ruin.On January 18, 1908, it was announced that the Canadianbanks had arranged to take over the various branchesof the Sovereign Bank of Canada, and had assumed all itsliabilities. The crisis of the previous autumn had revealedthe instability of this institution, although a careful examinationof its assets showed that the business might safely be