The formal duties of such a permanent officer could only be defined by some one conversant with the business of the Bank, and could scarcely be intelligibly discussed before the public.  Nor are the precise duties of the least importance.  Such an officer, if sound, able, and industrious, would soon rule the affairs of the Bank.  He would be acquainted better than anyone else, both with the traditions of the past and with the facts of the present; he would have a great experience; he would have seen many anxious times; he would always be on the watch for their recurrence.  And he would have a peculiar power of guidance at such moments from the nature of the men with whom he has most to deal.  Most Governors of the Bank of England are cautious merchants, not profoundly skilled in banking, but most anxious that their period of office should be prosperous and that they should themselves escape censure.  If a ‘safe’ course is pressed upon them they are likely to take that course.  Now it would almost always be ‘safe’ to follow the advice of the great standing ‘authority’; it would always be most ‘unsafe’ not to follow it.  If the changing Governor act on the advice of the permanent Deputy-Governor, most of the blame in case of mischance would fall on the latter; it would be said that a shifting officer like the Governor might very likely not know what should be done, but that the permanent official was put there to know it and paid to know it.  But if, on the other hand, the changing Governor should disregard the advice of his permanent colleague, and the consequence should be bad, he would be blamed exceedingly.  It would be said that, ’being without experience, he had taken upon him to overrule men who had much experience; that when the constitution of the Bank had provided them with skilled counsel, he had taken on himself to act of his own head, and to disregard that counsel;’ and so on ad infinitum.  And there could be no sort of conversation more injurious to a man in the City; the world there would say, rightly or wrongly, ’We must never be too severe on errors of judgment; we are all making them every day; if responsible persons do their best we can expect no more.  But this case is different:  the Governor acted on a wrong system; he took upon himself an unnecessary responsibility:’  and so a Governor who incurred disaster by disregarding his skilled counsellor would be thought a fool in the City for ever.  In consequence, the one skilled counsellor would in fact rule the Bank.  I believe that the appointment of the new permanent and skilled authority at the Bank is the greatest reform which can be made there, and that which is most wanted.  I believe that such a person would give to the decision of the Bank that foresight, that quickness, and that consistency m which those decisions are undeniably now deficient.  As far as I can judge, this change in the constitution of the Bank is by far the most necessary, and is perhaps more important even than all other changes.  But, nevertheless, we should reform the other points which we have seen to be defective.