Take the bank in our second illustration. Its paid-up capital amounts to £2,800,000, and its reserve fund to £1,600,000, so the shareholders’ funds come to £4,400,000. Deposits and other accounts are £26,652,300, making its total working resources £31,052,300. Now the net profit earned during the half-year was £207,869, so the bank cleared ·669 of a pound upon each £100 with which it was trading; and seeing that the trader expects to make 10 per cent. on his turn-over, it is pretty evident that bankers’ profits shrink into insignificance when compared with his. But the bank’s paid-up capital is only £2,800,000; and as £14,000 will pay 1 per cent. per annum for the half-year on that, this profit of £207,869 enables the bank to declare a dividend at the rate of 14 per cent. per annum, and to carry a large amount forward to the profit-and-loss account of the next half-year; yet it can hardly be said that its earnings on £31,000,000 are enormous; still, they look it when metamorphosed into a rate of 14 per cent. But this is only another illustration of how easily the crowd can be deceived by statistics. 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 ” 1,500