And thirdly, I fear that the possession of such patronage would ruin any set of persons in whose gift it was.  The election of the Chairman must be placed either in the court of proprietors or that of the directors.  If the proprietors choose, there will be something like the evils of an American presidential election.  Bank stock will be bought in order to confer the qualification of voting at the election of the ‘chief of the City.’  The Chairman, when elected, may well find that his most active supporters are large borrowers of the Bank, and he may well be puzzled to decide between his duty to the Bank and his gratitude to those who chose him.  Probably, if he be a cautious man of average ability, he will combine both evils; he will not lend so much money as he is asked for, and so will offend his own supporters; but will lend some which will be lost, and so the profits of the Bank will be reduced.  A large body of Bank proprietors would make but a bad elective body for an office of great prestige; they would not commonly choose a good person, and the person they did choose would be bound by promises that would make him less good.

The court of directors would choose better; a small body of men of business would not easily be persuaded to choose an extremely unfit man.  But they would not often choose an extremely good man.  The really best man would probably not be so rich as the majority of the directors, nor of so much standing, and not unnaturally they would much dislike to elevate to the headship of the City, one who was much less in the estimation of the City than themselves.  And they would be canvassed in every way and on every side to appoint a man of mercantile dignity or mercantile influence.  Many people of the greatest prestige and rank in the City would covet so great a dignity; if not for themselves, at least for some friend, or some relative, and so the directors would be set upon from every side.

An election so liable to be disturbed by powerful vitiating causes would rarely end in a good choice.  The best candidate would almost never be chosen; often, I fear, one would be chosen altogether unfit for a post so important.  And the excitement of so keen an election would altogether disturb the quiet of the Bank.  The good and efficient working of a board of Bank directors depends on its internal harmony, and that harmony would be broken for ever by the excitement, the sayings, and the acts of a great election.  The board of directors would almost certainly be demoralised by having to choose a sovereign, and there is no certainty, nor any great likelihood, indeed, that they would choose a good one.  In France the difficulty of finding a good body to choose the Governor of the Bank has been met characteristically.  The Bank of France keeps the money of the State, and the State appoints its governor.  The French have generally a logical reason to give for all they do, though perhaps the results of their actions are not always so good as