GIGANTIC TASK

Southland Times, Issue 21773, 30 July 1932, Page 5

GIGANTIC TASK

WAR LOAN CONVERSION OPERATIONS HIGHLY MECHANIZED FEW REDEMPTIONS (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 7.20 p.m.) London, July 29. Four thousand five hundred clerks are exclusively employed on the conversion operations, 2400 being on, the Bank of England staff. The operations are mechanized to a degree, ana megaphones are used on every floor to convey general instructions to the The magnitude of the task is shown bv the fact that in the index room alone there are 3,500,000 cards with 13,000,000 entries regarding stocks held by banks. , „ .t. The Post Office is also P.roud of the achievement of dealing with 5,000,000 extra letters in a month. The Government promised payment of a bonus of 20/- for conversion within a fortnight, and the Post Office succeeded in despatching the warrants within two days. Mr Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, states that special arrangements are being made to meet overseas applicants. The bonus will depend on the date of mailing. If conversions are received in December from the Solomon Islands the bonus will be paid. A further 74,000 applications for the conversion of war loan holdings were received by the Bank of England yesterday and only 800 applications for redemption. The total applications to date are as follows: Bank of England, 1,086,000; Post Office Savings Bank, 666,000; Trustees of Savings Bank, 86-.000; Bank of Ireland, 31,000; grand total, 1,869,000, of which 1,755,000 are for conversion. The total holdings are about 2,600,000. The Swiss Bank Corporation yesterday deposited for conversion holdings of £1,000,000, and other large applications are announced from Switzerland and South Africa.