the reasons for them.  The Governor of the Bank of France has not always, I am told, been a very competent person; the Sub-Governor, whom the State also appoints, is, as we might expect, usually better.  But for our English purposes it would be useless to inquire minutely into this.  No English statesman would consent to be responsible for the choice of the Governor of the Bank of England.  After every panic, the Opposition would say in Parliament that the calamity had been ‘grievously aggravated,’ if not wholly caused, by the ’gross misconduct’ of the Governor appointed by the ministry.  Or, possibly, offices may have changed occupants and the ministry in power at the panic would be the opponents of the ministry which at a former time appointed the Governor.  In that case they would be apt to feel, and to intimate, a ‘grave regret’ at the course which the nominee of their adversaries had ‘thought it desirable to pursue.’  They would not much mind hurting his feelings, and if he resigned they would have themselves a valuable piece of patronage to confer on one of their own friends.  No result could be worse than that the conduct of the Bank and the management should be made a matter of party politics, and men of all parties would agree in this, even if they agreed in almost nothing else.

I am therefore afraid that we must abandon the plan of improving the government of the Bank of England by the appointment of a permanent Governor, because we should not be sure of choosing a good governor, and should indeed run a great risk, for the most part, of choosing a bad one.

I think, however, that much of the advantage, with little of the risk, might be secured by a humbler scheme.  In English political offices, as was observed before, the evil of a changing head is made possible by the permanence of a dignified subordinate.  Though the Parliamentary Secretary of State and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary go in and out with each administration, another Under-Secretary remains through all such changes, and is on that account called ‘permanent.’  Now this system seems to me in its principle perfectly applicable to the administration of the Bank of England.  For the reasons which have just been given, a permanent ruler of the Bank of England cannot be appointed; for other reasons, which were just before given, some most influential permanent functionary is essential in the proper conduct of the business of the Bank; and, mutatis mutandis, these are the very difficulties, and the very advantages which have led us to frame our principal offices of state in the present fashion.