It would be absurd to attempt in a short chapter to discuss the price of bank shares; but as the banking companies, unless they enjoy an exceptionally sheltered position, earn less during those periods of depression which from time to time overtake the trade of the country, it follows that their dividends, like their deposit rates, rise and fall with the Bank of England rate. Bank shares, therefore, can be bought cheaply when trade is bad and loanable capital cheap. As the so-called gilt-edged securities, during normal times, should then be dear, it often pays to sell out of the latter, invest in bank shares, and wait for the turning of the tide.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PAY OF BANK-CLERKS
It cannot be said that bank-directors, when considering the question of remuneration, err on the side of generosity; but nobody would dream of accusing them of that crime, and if the bank-clerk is not paid lavishly, his salary, as a rule, is appreciably above the wages paid for clerical labour in the open market. Nor can it be affirmed that the country private banker was one whit more generous than a board of directors. Indeed, the evidence points in quite an opposite direction, for the clerks of those firms which have been absorbed by the companies generally profited by the change; so it must be allowed that the joint-stock system has raised the standard of comfort of the bank-clerk. Certain of the London private bankers were more liberal, and others, again, had the commercial instinct strongly developed, but we shall see the salary scales of the joint-stock banks are not calculated to excite envy in the mind of the multitude, unless we except the unemployed and the hungry.
The following scale is that of a large London and provincial banking company:—
| General managers | £1,500 | to | £2,000 |
| Managers in a city | 500 | to | 1,500 |
| Managers in towns of from 40,000 to 60,000 inhabitants | 350 | to | 500 |
| Managers in small country towns | 250 | to | 350 |
| Inspectors (with one guinea a day for travelling expenses) | 300 | to | 500 |
| Accountants or chief-clerks | 160 | to | 210 |
| Cashiers | 160 | to | 210 |
| Clerks | 80 | to | 160 |
| Apprentices | 30 | to | 50 |
At the head-office in London, where there is a special scale, the city-manager would receive from £1,000 to £1,500 a year, and the chiefs of departments from £300 to £1,000, according to the importance of the department, while the salaries of the ledger-clerks would be raised £10 each year until the maximum, £300, had been reached. The maximum for clerks is £180. At the metropolitan and suburban branches however, the salaries are the same as those set out in the foregoing list, and the managers would receive from £300 to £800 or so a year in proportion to the business done at the branch. Very few of the joint-stock banks would pay a higher scale of wages than this, and the great majority of them, especially the purely provincial companies, would pay considerably less, while the Scotch banks are niggardly in the extreme—a little national characteristic. It is on record that a clerk in a certain Scottish banking company, whose head-office is at Aberdeen, was receiving £30 a year at the end of five years’ service. In a fit of unaccountable generosity his salary was then raised to £50 per annum, but the recipient remarks that he showed his gratitude by promptly moving to London.
Adverting to our list, we can see that a youngster entering this bank at the age of, say, seventeen, gets £30 a year, out of which he has to pay certain subscriptions. At the age of twenty his salary would be increased to £80, and £10 at the end of each year’s service would be added until the maximum for clerks, £160, were reached. He would then be twenty-eight, and there he would have to wait for the bank to make him either a cashier or an accountant before he could proceed to the next step. A few men remain clerks all their lives, but the percentage would be a very small one, and in every probability the clerk might count upon being promoted at the age of thirty-three or thirty-four. With good luck, or should he chance to have a friend at “court,” he might gain this step at thirty.