WOMEN IN BANKS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2752, 22 April 1916, Page 11

WOMEN IN BANKS

SERVICES SATISFACTORY. For centuries it was accepted as an axiom by mankind that a woman could not keep a secret,, states a writer in the "Argus." Hence for many years after women entered the industrial field, confidential posts were not open to them. Then . the experiment was made, and it was discovered that, when employed in positions of trust,. women could be relied upon, perhaps more than men, to preserve an inviolable confidence. This is due in part to a high sense of. honour, and also to the fact that the occasion never arises when they babble in cups. Banking is perhaps the business that most of all calls •for secrecy, and in the United States there are banking institutions where none but women are employed. At Knightsbridge, London, there is a bank conducted solely by women for women clients. In Australia the war has claipied so many young bank clerks that the place of many of them has beenHaken temporarily by girls. Will the invasion of the banks by women clerks continue? Will they hold their place after the war? There is every indication that_ they will. Banking opinion here, as in London, is entirely favourable. The girls have, to. use an Americanism, "made good.' Bank managers regard them as in every way satisfactory. Most of them have passed both junior and senior'public examinations, and are better educated than the majority of male junior clerks offering fresh from sahool. They are also more conscientious and accurate. Their positions, of course, will be held only until the young men who went to the war return, and "ask for their old places. But women have shown 1 that as junior clerks they ar© successful, and it is probable that even after the war much of the mechanical work of the'banking business will be done by women. That they will become tellers is not likely. But very few men reach the higher positions. The plums in banking are not numerous, and very few junior clerks have i much prospect of reaching the top of the ladder, even male clerks. It is felt, therefore, that no hardship is imposed on' the male clerk by installing women in positions for which they are so obviously suited ; and which they hold without ambition to become managers for the most part, but with the intention of making themselves independent until the. time comes when they shall lose their independence for over. in. the wished-for yoke of marriage.

The health talk which had been promised for this evening at the Y.W.C.A. in the Herbert Street rooms by Dr. Hardwiclco Smith has been postponed owing to the holidays. The official opening. of the Soldiers' Hostel at Newtown takes place on Wednesday afternoon.