e
concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of individuals. Time is
ever becoming a more important element, a smaller number of men can
act more quickly than a larger number, and so business must be more
and more concentrated to be done efficiently.

A director has no authority to act separately and independently. Only
as a board, properly convened, does he represent his corporation.
While this is the law, he can and does in fact often act singly, and
his action becomes effective to bind his corporation by ratification.
Such action plays a great part in the modern corporation.

Though a principal may at any time, as a general rule, revoke the
authority he has given to an agent, this does not apply to the
directors of corporations. Says Morawetz: "The majority of the board
clearly have no power to expel an individual director, or to exclude
him from inspecting the company's books and participating in its
management, although they may believe him to be hostile to the
interests of the association." A president or other official is chosen
pursuant to the charter to serve for a year or other period, and is
simply an agent in serving the corporation, he cannot be turned away
like an ordinary agent. If he conducts fraudulently, he may be
removed, but this is not an easy process as corporations long ago
found out.

Directors in most cases receive no compensation though the practice is
growing of rewarding them. Unless this is fixed by charter or by the
stockholders they can get nothing, for they cannot legally vote
salaries to themselves. A director who performs a different service,
serves as an attorney, for example, may receive compensation for it.
This is a salutary rule of the law, which the courts everywhere do not
hesitate to enforce. By another rule, hardly less important, directors
cannot bind their corporation by any contract made with themselves, or
represent their corporation in transactions wherein they have an
interest. This is only another application of a rule of agency, that
an agent cannot act at the same time for both parties. Yet there is
increasing difficulty in applying this rule because the business of
corporations has become so intermingled, and also the business of
directors, directly or indirectly, with that of the corporations they
represent. From this state of things has come another rule, that the
transactions between directors and their corporations are not actually
void but voidable, in oth