so much to the efficiency of the national economic system.  Such a result would, of course, only take place gradually; but it would none the less be the eventual result of any complete adoption of such a method of supervision.  The friends of commission government who expect to discipline the big corporations severely without injuring their efficiency are merely the victims of an error as old as the human will.  They “want it both ways.”  They want to eat their cake and to have it.  They want to obtain from a system of minute official regulation and divided responsibility the same economic results as have been obtained from a system of almost complete freedom and absolutely concentrated responsibility.

The reader must not, however, misinterpret the real meaning of the objection just made to corporation reform by means of commissions.  I can see no ground for necessarily opposing the granting of increased power and responsibility to an official or a commission of officials, merely because such officials are paid by the government rather than by a private employer.  But when such a grant is considered necessary, the attempt should be to make the opportunity for good work comprehensive and commensurate with the responsibility.  The sort of officialism of which the excavations at Panama or the reclamation service is a sample has as much chance of being efficient under suitable conditions as has the work of a private corporation.  The government assumes complete charge of a job, and pushes it to a successful or unsuccessful conclusion, according to the extent with which its tradition or organization enables it to perform efficient work.  Moreover, there is a certain kind of official supervision of a private business which does not bring with it any divided responsibility.  Perhaps the best illustration thereof is the regulation to which the national banks are obliged to submit.  In this case the bank examiners and the Controller do not interfere in the management of the bank, except when the management is violating certain conditions of safe banking—­which have been carefully defined in the statute.  So long as the banks obey the law, they need have no fear of the Treasury Department.  But in commission government the official authority, in a sense, both makes and administers the law.  The commission is empowered to use its own discretion about many matters, such as rates, service, equipment, and the like, in relation to which the law places the corporation absolutely in its hands.  Such official interference is of a kind which can hardly fail in the long run to go wrong.  It is based on a false principle, and interferes with individual liberty, not necessarily in an unjustifiable way, but in a way that can hardly be liberating in spirit or constructive in result.