A BANK FOR WOMEN.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1222, 2 September 1911, Page 11

A BANK FOR WOMEN.

GERMAN EXPERIMENT. The first "bank in tlie world conductcd exclusively by and for women is finishing a successful first year c*f existence in Berlin, says an exchange. Its profits in pounds sterling will not run" to more than three figures when' the first annual balance is struck in June, but the Mutual Bank of Self-supporting Women has already demonstrated that it.has a mission and a future. It is woman-kind's latest bid for complete emancipation from ninn-rule. AVars and emigration have for decades caused a chronic surplus of women over men in Germany, with the result that an extraordinarily high percentage of females have boon driven into the bread-winning class.- War has not ravaged the Fatherland for many years, and emigration has practically ceased, but very many girls and women are still self-supporting. Tens of thousands of them have gone into trado on their own account, and it is to the needs of this ever-growing community business-women that the bank parti-

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cularly-ministers. Hitherto they have been practically helpless as far-as credit and other hanking ■ accommodations are concerned. German men are constitutionally incapable of taking the gentler eex seriously as business factors, and us ''credit risks" t'hoy have had no status at all. The crying need for providing proprietresses of groceries, laundries, millinery and dressmaking establishments, butcher shops, and countless other undertakings with financial facilities enjoyed by male competitors. called the women's bank into existence. A Modest Beginning. Womanlike, the bank has begun modestly. Its present capital is only ,£SOOO, with an additional shareholders' liability of .£IO,OOO. Membership in the co-opera-tive corporation w.hich owns and conducts the bank is available to all women in Germany and the German colonies, and is obtained by subscribing for at least on? i£s share of capital and the payment of a membership fee of five shillings. One.woman may not hold more than ,£SOO of , capital. Nominally, according to the bank's statutes, no woman may avail her r sel.f of the institution's credit or other facilities unless a shareholder, but tho rule is not rigidly enforced. Broadminded help for deserving, selfsupporting business women is the bank's guiding principle. When a German married woman, for example, wants to open an account at an ordinary back she is confronted with tho sometimes forbidding regulation: "Written Permission of Husbands Indispensable." There is no such slavish inhibition in tho lexicon of this bank. The bank has established itself in commodious and dignified quarters in a grotiud-ifoor apartment in the Metz-strasse, in the heart of the best West End residential district. As they are presided over exclusively by women, it is needless to add that the quarters are practical, comfortable, and tasteful. Tho feminine hand is omni-present. A serviceable mirror is N tho most conspicuous feature of the bluc-and-white watled vestibule. The bank's windows are hung with immaculate white lace curtains, and there are potted plants and creeping vines on the sills and tho balcony, an dvases full of fresh-cut flowers at straegic decorative' points all over the premises. Here debts are contracted over a counter redolent with margueiites and lilac. The Bank's Varied Business. The bank undertakes every form of business transaction common to its older malo contemporaries. It accepts interestbearing deposits, makes leans on approved securities, executes Stock Exchange orders, discounts bills of exchanze. and collects interest and dividend coupons. As its initial resources arc small, and its experience limited, the bank has elected to pursue an ultra-conservative policy until it has had time to feci its way and cain a foothold. No loan higher than .£25 is made to any one borrower. All advances over fifty shillings require collateral security. Loans are repayable in all cases within three months. It speaks volumes for tho re-

liability of self-supporting business women that there has not yet been a single cntrv in the "loss" account. All bills payable have proved "gilt-edged." The banlc has not had (o go to law to coerce a solitary debtor. The management of the bank is vested in a board of control consisting of four women; its actual conduct is in the hands of two managing directresses, and a staff of seven young women clerks. In charge when tho special representative of the London "Daily Mail" was privileged to inspect this.citadel of feminine finance was Fraulein Anna Hoffmann, whose energetic business like manner epitomises new Germany's progressive womankind. Frauleip, Hoffmann wes chosen to manago the women's bank bccai.xe of ten years' experience in supervising tho credit department of a wholesale timber business, in the course of which she handled some .£200.000 worth of promissory notes a year. Fraulein Hoffmann gave a spirited review of the bank's activities and characteristic experiences. Mistrust of the Sex. "Our progress is slow," she said, "becauso we have to encounter not only tho

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competition and jealousy of the big 'man' bank, but also, what is still worse, the apathy and mistrust of our own sex. I'nevor knew till we launched this undertaking how suspicious of women's reliability, and integrity women themselves really are. Half the women who hesitate to come to our support say they don't 'trust a woman.' That is why we are eager to publish our first annual balance-sheet, which, if all gees well, will show that none of the funds entrusted to our .stewardship have been squandered or lost. One of the bank's great specialties is to act as intermediary between tradeswomen and their importunate creditors. Woman shopkeepers are often ruined by overbearing or conscienceless creditors simply because there is no one ready to step in and, by arranging a simple compromise. ward off impending evictions or bankruptcy. We have settled satisfactorily to all concerned dozens of siioff eases and enabled worthy women to continue in business. We have rescued many tradeswomen from the hands of usurers and prevented others from fallins into their .clutches. Not only shopkeepers, but "all sorts of girls and women who support themselves are our customers—actresses, opera-singers, seamstresses, typistes, shop assistants, telephone operators. We have made loans to enable, young women to get married—you know even a working girl in Germany must have a dowry—and onr records contain a transaction for the purchase of a trousseau for a meritorious workwoman-bride. Our queerest 'deal' was a loan of thirty shillings to a laundress, who needed that much to buy a new set of teeth, which was all that stood between her and a happv marriage with a worthy working man. Women are notoriously naive in money matters. We once had difficulty in persuading a customer to fake !)00 marks in bank-notes, because they were not the identical ones she had deposited! Our Stock Exchange department is frequently called upon. German women invest eagerly." a mere man do business here?" 1 "Yes. and I don't mind saying that many do!"

Ladies will be interested to note that Mrs. R-olleston lias just received from England a very large assortment of Hair Goods, made of the best quality English hair, including switches suitable for hairdressing in the newest styles- which each purchaser will be taught gratis. Goods sold at English prices, 256 Lambton Quay, opp. Tho Economic.* • ■'

Appendicitis still appears to bo a source of danger in many British houses. It was after an operation for it that Mr. Lloyd-George lost his child. Mr.' G. M. Trevclyan, who married Mrs. Humphrey Ward's daughter, has also just lost his little boy, aged 4.J years. Earl Cadogan's heir, Viscount Chelsea, was another victim, and tho littlo Earl Grosvenor, heir to the dukedom of Westminster, similarly succumbed. Surgeons nowadays recogniso tho terrible fact that among children appendicitis is fatal in four eases out of five, and Sir Frederick Treves himself lost his own daughter from the same complaint.