by John Stuart Mill

... I believe that the practical principal in which safety resides, the ideal to be kept in view... may be conveyed in these words: the greatest dissemination of power consistent with efficiency; but the greatest possible centralization of information and diffusion of it from the center... This central organ should have a right to know all that is done, and its special duty should be that of making the knowledge acquired in one place available to others... [I]ts advice would naturally carry much authority; but its actual power, as a permanent institution, should, I conceive, be limited to compelling the local officers to obey the laws laid down for their guidance. In all things not provided for by general rules, those officers should be left to their own judgement.