TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 835 



now followed in the Savings Bank departments of all Canadian Banks, was first 

 introduced in Canada by the Post Office Savings Bank. 



The form of Ledger Account is remarkable principally from its dispensing with 

 the process of ruling oft", and adding the debtor and creditor sides at th<T close 

 of each year. The saving of labour effected permits the annual task of addino- the 

 interest in depositors' accounts and of ' balancing ' the ledgers bein" - carried on 

 with extreme rapidity. The interest was added to the 66,682 accounts open on 

 June 30, 1884, and the accounts themselves balanced in three days— i.e., on the 

 first three days in July — without interruption to. the regular daily work on those 

 days. 



In the Canadian system such is the daily proof upon the accuracy of the 

 ledger entries, that no further or periodical check is employed, except that annual 

 verification which the abstracts from the ledgers made in July of each year afford. 



The relation between labour and clerical force bears a striking analogy to the 

 conditions in the British Savings Bank department. In Canada there is one 

 clerk to each 3,200 depositors' accounts; in England one to each 3,100. In Canada 

 there is one clerk to each 7,900 transactions; in England one to each 8,770 

 transactions. These figures bear perhaps the best testimony to the good organisa- 

 tion of the Canadian service, the British Post Office Savings Bank being universally 

 looked upon as a model of successful administration. 



3. Dominion Savings Banks. By T. D. Tims. 



4. Loans and Savings Companies. By W. A. Dodglas. 



5. Irish Emigration. By S. Tuke. 



6. The British Empire in North America and in Australasia. 

 By W. Westgarth. 



The author, one of the earlier colonists of the still youthful Victoria, first 

 President of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, and the senior member for 

 Melbourne in the first Legislature of the colony, claimed full acquaintance with 

 one principal part of his subject, Australasia, and, with regard to Canada, he had 

 visited it thirty years before, and has now returned to witness with due interest its 

 great progress. He opened his subject by pointing to three principal colonial terri- 

 tories of the Empire; namely, British North America, Australasia, and South 

 Africa. He was to deal only with the two first, which, however, were by far the 

 more important, and gave promise of being, in the future, even the greatest of the 

 entire Empire. He had spent seventeen years of his earlier life in Australia, and 

 was now, as he said, revisiting Canada. The Canadian Dominion included, in its 

 recent auspicious federation, all of British America north of the United States, 

 with the sole exception of the still separate colony of Newfoundland, which, how- 

 ever, it can hardly be imagined, is to continue permanently thus outside. Austra- 

 lasia embraces, in the colonial sense, the Australian main, Tasmania, New Zealand, 

 and Fiji. In the geographical sense it would include also New Caledonia, belonging 

 to France, the Loyalties and New Hebrides groups, and, above all, the great terri- 

 tory of New Guinea, with the smaller islands on its eastern flank. South-Eastern 

 New Guinea, unclaimed by the Dutch, is at length to be added to the British Em- 

 pire, after some protracted discussion between the Colonial Office and the Austra- 

 lasian colonies. These colonies are not yet federated like the Dominion, but action 

 has already been taken in that direction. The author next alluded to the accelera- 

 tive rate of all modern progress, and forecasted the great advance and the vast and 

 prosperous interests which the Dominion and Australasia would present even 

 within fifty or a hundred years hence. He remarked, in favour of the Canadian 

 future, that the cooler and more bracing climates brought eventually the highest 



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