Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

1901 TO 1914 249$3,173,000 ; safes and fixtures, $560,000 ;investment inDominion Realty Company's shares, $1,091,000; a total of$4,824,000. During 1910 the contract was let for the erectionof a new and larger office for the bank in Winnipeg.The year 1911 proved to be one of great activity, not onlybecause of the increased demand for money, but also becauseof the expansionThe branch managers were advised hi April that there wasevery indication of an extremely active demand for moneyof the bank's business at home and abroad.during the following autumn and winter. "The aggregateexpenditures of municipalities for permanent improvements,"it was stated, "and of corporations and individuals for theerection of buildings of all kinds, and for other investmentsof a fixed character, promise to reach record totals." Thestrain upon the staff became pronounced, and great difficultywas experienced in finding men sufficiently trained to fill thepositions available. Promotions were much more rapid thanhad been the case a few years before. One of the expedientsadopted, at first principally at the foreign branches, was toemploy local men who were not appointed to the regularstaff or admitted to the Pension and Guarantee Funds, andwho were therefore denominated "temporary" employees, incontradistinction to those who were expected to spend alifetime in the bank's service. This policy was not new, forthe bank had taken on temporary employees at Dawson andother western branches many years before, but it had neverbeen adopted on an extensive scale, being regarded purelyas an emergency measure. A few years later, however, duringthe Great War, and largely as a result of the adoption ofconscription in Canada, a large proportion of the staff, bothof men and women, came to consist of temporary employees.Not only did the expansion of the bank's business causedifficulty in securing the necessary staff, but the steadilyrising cost of living and the many opportunities of earninghigher remuneration in other occupations, even ifonlytemporarily, drew many men from the bank's employ.