Responsibility in this case is
a mere name. "Boards," it is happily said by Bentham, "are screens."
What "the Board" does is the act of nobody; and nobody can be made
to answer for it. The Board suffers, even in reputation, only in its
collective character; and no individual member feels this further than
his disposition leads him to identify his own estimation with that
of the body- a feeling often very strong when the body is a permanent
one, and he is wedded to it for better for worse; but the fluctuations
of a modern official career give no time for the formation of such
an esprit de corps; which if it exists at all, exists only in the
obscure ranks of the permanent subordinates. Boards, therefore, are
not a fit instrument for executive business; and are only admissible
in it when, for other reasons, to give full discretionary power to a
single minister would be worse.
On the other hand, it is also a maxim of experience that in the
multitude of counsellors there is wisdom; and that a man seldom judges
right, even in his own concerns, still less in those of the public,
when he makes habitual use of no knowledge but his own, or that of
some single adviser. There is no necessary incompatibility between
this principle and the other. It is easy to give the effective
power, and the full responsibility, to one, providing him when
necessary with advisers, each of whom is responsible only for the
opinion he gives.
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