21 MARCH 1874, Page 3

Mr. Disraeli announced in his speech on the Address the

names of the members of the Royal Commission which has been appointed on the Labour Laws. They are :—The Lord Chief Justice (Sir A. Cockburn), Lord Winmarleigh (Colonel Wilson Patten), Mr. Bouverie, Mr. Russell Gurney, Sir Montague Smith, Mr. Roebuck, M.P., Mr. Goldney, Mr. Macdonald (M.P.

for Stafford), and Mr. Thomas Hughes. If a Commission were necessary at all,—and though Mr. Disraeli declares it is not intended to stave off responsibility or delay legislation, we fear it will have both these effects,—we do not think that Com- mission a very good one. It has rather too much Judge in it,-a- thegreat Judges have little time for such matters,—and too much alarmist element, and the working-class should have had at least three representatives on it, one of whom might well have been Mr. Frederic Harrison, unless his objection to another Commission was so great as to prevent his acceptance of the office. Mr. Stephen, too, who has spent so much time on codifi- cation, would probably have been more useful than all the three Judges put together, and certainly quite as impartial. It looks hie a Commission of procrastination.