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.