First.  This plan would be exceedingly unpopular.  A permanent Governor of the Bank of England would be one of the greatest men in England.  He would be a little ‘monarch’ in the City; he would be far greater than the ‘Lord Mayor.’  He would be the personal embodiment of the Bank of England; he would be constantly clothed with an almost indefinite prestige.  Everybody in business would bow down before him and try to stand well with him, for he might in a panic be able to save almost anyone he liked, and to ruin almost anyone he liked.  A day might come when his favour might mean prosperity, and his distrust might mean ruin.  A position with so much real power and so much apparent dignity would be intensely coveted.  Practical men would be apt to say that it was better than the Prime Ministership, for it would last much longer, and would have a greater jurisdiction over that which practical men would most value, over money.  At all events, such a Governor, if he understood his business, might make the fortunes of fifty men where the Prime Minister can make that of one.  Scarcely anything could be more unpopular in the City than the appointment of a little king to reign over them.

Secondly.  I do not believe that we should always get the best man for the post; often I fear that we should not even get a tolerable man.  There are many cases in which the offer of too high a pay would prevent our obtaining the man we wish for, and this is one of them.  A very high pay of prestige is almost always very dangerous.  It causes the post to be desired by vain men, by lazy men, by men of rank; and when that post is one of real and technical business, and when, therefore, it requires much previous training, much continuous labour, and much patient and quick judgment, all such men are dangerous.  But they are sure to covet all posts of splendid dignity, and can only be kept out of them with the greatest difficulty.  Probably, in every Cabinet there are still some members (in the days of the old close boroughs there were many) whose posts have come to them not from personal ability or inherent merit, but from their rank, their wealth, or even their imposing exterior.  The highest political offices are, indeed, kept clear of such people, for in them serious and important duties must constantly be performed in the face of the world.  A Prime Minister, or a Chancellor of the Exchequer, or a Secretary of State must explain his policy and defend his actions in Parliament, and the discriminating tact of a critical assemblyabounding in experience, and guided by traditionwill soon discover what he is.  But the Governor of the Bank would only perform quiet functions, which look like routine, though they are not, m which there is no immediate risk of success or failure; which years hence may indeed issue in a crop of bad debts, but which any grave persons may make at the time to look fair and plausible.  A large Bank is exactly the place where a vain and shallow person in authority, if he be a man of gravity and method, as such men often are, may do infinite evil in no long time, and before he is detected.  If he is lucky enough to begin at a time of expansion in trade, he is nearly sure not to be found out till the time of contraction has arrived, and then very large figures will be required to reckon the evil he has done.