Nor is this the only difficulty.  Not only would a real supervision of a large business by a board of directors require much more time than the board would consent to occupy in meeting, it would also require much more time and much more thought than the individual directors would consent to give.  These directors are only employing on the business of the Bank the vacant moments of their time, and the spare energies of their minds.  They cannot give the Bank more; the rest is required for the safe conduct of their own affairs, and if they diverted it from these affairs they would be ruined.  A few of them may have little other business, or they may have other partners in the business, on whose industry they can rely, and whose judgment they can trust; one or two may have retired from business.  But for the most part, directors of a company cannot attend principally and anxiously to the affairs of a company without so far neglecting their own business as to run great risk of ruin; and if they are ruined, their trustworthiness ceases, and they are no longer permitted by custom to be directors.

Nor, even if it were possible really to supervise a business by the effectual and constant inspection of fifteen or sixteen rich and capable persons, would even the largest business easily bear the expense of such a supervision.  I say rich, because the members of a board governing a large bank must be men of standing and note besides, or they would discredit the bank; they need not be rich in the sense of being worth millions, but they must be known to possess a fair amount of capital and be seen to be transacting a fair quantity of business.  But the labour of such persons, I do not say their spare powers, but their principal energies, fetches a high price.  Business is really a profession often requiring for its practice quite as much knowledge, and quite as much skill, as law and medicine; and requiring also the possession of money.  A thorough man of business, employing a fair capital in a trade, which he thoroughly comprehends, not only earns a profit on that capital, but really makes of his professional skill a large income.  He has a revenue from talent as well as from money; and to induce sixteen or eighteen persons to abandon such a position and such an income in order to devote their entire attention to the affairs of a joint stock company, a salary must be given too large for the bank to pay or for anyone to wish to propose.

And an effectual supervision by the whole board being impossible, there is a great risk that the whole business may fall to the general manager.  Many unhappy cases have proved this to be very dangerous.  Even when the business of joint stock banks was far less, and when the deposits entrusted to them were very much smaller, a manager sometimes committed frauds which were dangerous, and still oftener made mistakes that were ruinous.  Actual crime will always be rare; but, as an uninspected manager of a great bank