A certain number of directors attending daily by rotation is, it should be said, no substitute for a permanent committee.  It has no sufficient responsibility.  A changing body cannot have any responsibility.  The transactions which were agreed to by one set of directors present on the Monday might be exactly those which would be much disapproved by directors present on the Wednesday.  It is essential to the decisions of most business, and not least of the banking business, that they should be made constantly by the same persons; the chain of transactions must pass through the same minds.  A large business may be managed tolerably by a quiet group of second-rate men if those men be always the same; but it cannot be managed at all by a fluctuating body, even of the very cleverest men.  You might as well attempt to guide the affairs of the nation by means of a cabinet similarly changing.

Our great joint stock bands are imprudent in so carefully concealing the details of their government, and in secluding those details from the risk of discussion.  The answer, no doubt will be, ’Let well alone; as you have admitted, there hardly ever before was so great a success as these banks of ours:  what more do you or can you want?’ I can only say that I want further to confirm this great success and to make it secure for the future.  At present there is at least the possibility of a great reaction.  Supposing that, owing to defects in its government, one even of the greater London joint stock banks failed, there would be an instant suspicion of the whole system.  One terra incognita being seen to be faulty, every other terra incognita would be suspected.  If the real government of these banks had for years been known, and if the subsisting banks had been known not to be ruled by the bad mode of government which had ruined the bank that had fallen, then the ruin of that bank would not be hurtful.  The other banks would be seen to be exempt from the cause which had destroyed it.  But at present the ruin of one of these great banks would greatly impair the credit of all.  Scarcely any one knows the precise government of any one; in no case has that government been described on authority; and the fall of one by grave misgovernment would be taken to show that the others might as easily be misgoverned also.  And a tardy disclosure even of an admirable constitution would not much help the surviving banks:  as it was extracted by necessity, it would be received with suspicion.  A sceptical world would say ’of course they say they are all perfect now; it would not do for them to say anything else.’