Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

sites,UpTHE BANK PREMISES DEPARTMENT 489to 1912 allthe work connected with the selection ofthe passing of plans, the supply of equipment and thesupervision of alterations, repairs and renovations of the bank'spremises, was performed by officers of the inspectiondepartment, but in that year, in order to enable that departmentto give its whole attention to matters properly pertainingto banking, it was decided to establish a bank premises department,the supervisor of which would be responsible to thegeneral management for the administration of the affairs ofthe Dominion Realty Company, Limited, and of all theproperties belonging to it and to the bank.The results of the new policy have proved even moresatisfactory than was expected by those responsible for it, andthere can now be no question as to its wisdom. Great carehas been exercised in the choice of sites and the erection ofbuildings, and notwithstanding the shifting of business causedby such changes as the opening of new branch lines of railway,it has been found necessary to move only six of the portablebuildings. When the amalgamation of the Eastern TownshipsBank occurred, the Dominion Realty Company took oversuch of its properties as continued to be occupied by branchesof the bank, paying for them in cash the value at which theystood on the books of the Eastern Townships Bank. Anappraisal made in 1914 showed an appreciation of thirty-oneper cent, in the value of the properties owned by the Company.At the beginning of 1918 it owned 219 buildingsoccupied by the bank, as well as many sites for brancheswhich still occupied rented premises or had not yet been opened.Allowing for all bonds outstanding, the bank and theDominion Realty Company together held on November30, 1917, land and buildings valued at $14,249,553, whichis represented in the bank's statement of that date by anitem of $5,090,075.The volume of the Company's operations since its commencementisgiven in the following table: