The great banks extend their service throughout the Dominion by means of branches. These now number nearly five thousand, and new ones are being constantly added. The branch plan is the most striking difference between Canada’s banking system and ours, which prohibits the establishment of branches except within a bank’s home city, and, under certain regulations, in foreign countries. The larger Canadian banks are represented by their own branches in every city, from coast to coast, while the Bank of Montreal alone has more than six hundred agencies. Nearly all the banks have their head offices in Eastern Canada. Six of them are located in the province of Quebec, seven in Ontario, and one each in Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Three of the banks in Quebec are controlled by the French Canadians. Their combined capital is just under nine million dollars, or not quite half that of the Royal Bank of Canada, the second largest in the Dominion. An official of the Canadian Bankers’ Association has explained to me some of the advantages of this system. He said: [Illustration: When the discoverers sailed up the St. Lawrence to what is now Montreal they thought these rapids just above the city blocked their passage to China, and so named them “La Chine.”] [Illustration: Montreal’s rise as a great port began a century ago when the Lachine Canal was built around the rapids, and gave the city a water passage to the upper St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes.] [Illustration: Many homes have the Rideau Canal and its fringe of park at their front door. Built originally for military reasons, the canal now makes possible a boat trip through the Rideau Lakes to the St. Lawrence.] “Our plan of branch banks is based partly on the principle that there is more strength in a bundle of fagots joined together than there is in the same number of sticks taken separately. Poor management or bad times, under your system, may bring disaster to a single bank, whereas with us losses in any branch would be easily absorbed in a great volume of business covering the whole country, and the shock hardly felt at all. Under our system it is a simple matter for a bank to concentrate its funds in the districts where they are most needed, and money flows easily into the channels where there is the greatest demand. This is of the utmost importance to Canada, for we have limited capital, and therefore must keep it liquid at all times.