Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

THE BANK DURING THE WAR 355build up. No spirit of selfishness, however, influenced thebankers, and they lent their aid heartily to the task of makingthe loan a success. Committees of bankers were formedthroughout the country to act in an advisory capacity underthe authority of the Canadian Bankers' Association for thepurpose of assisting the campaign. These committees hadtheir headquarters in Montreal, Quebec, Halifax, St. Johnand Charlottetown, in eastern Canada; and in Toronto,Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver andVictoria, in central and western Canada. Only two of thecommittees were without a representative of The CanadianBank of Commerce and in four cases the chairman wasa member of its staff. These were: Toronto, Mr. H. V. F.Jones, assistant general manager of the bank; Calgary, Mr.C. G. K. Nourse, local manager; Halifax, Mr. D. Macgillivray,local manager, and Vancouver, Mr. G. V. Holt, local manager.The subscription lists opened on November 12 and closed onDecember 1. The banks had agreed to make advances atthe rate of five and a half per cent., the rate of interest yieldedby the bonds themselves, to subscribers who might not be ableto pay for their bonds at once, provided they were able to repaythe advance within a year; and they also accepted the bondsfor safe-keeping for one year free of charge. The issue wasnominally for $300,000,000, but the objective was in reality$400,000,000. This objective was more than achieved, thebanks offering every facility in the way of keeping open afterhours, giving advice to customers, and assisting hi countlessother ways to attain the desired result.An interesting little incident of the campaign occurredat one of the branches of the bank in a prosperous ruraldistrict of western Ontario. A package of notes of TheCanadian Bank of Commerce, presented in payment of aninstalment of the Victory Loan, was found to consist partlyof ten consecutively numbered notes of an old issue which,according to the books of the bank, must have been paid outabout 1899, and partly of even older notes issued in 1887