5 MARCH 1932, Page 2

- The personnel of- the body. likely- to be known

as the Tariff Committee, though its official designation is the Import Duties Advisory Conunittee, is not as important as the ComMittee's scope, 'but it is important 'enough. Whether or not the three names' announced 'on Tuesday represent Me. Cluirtiberlain'S first choke, the triumvirate now at work is a 'capable bodY, Competent; so far as any human beings can be conipetent, to discharge the almost inn:possibly onerous task raid Upon it. Sir George May'a forte may be said to be administration and finance, and Sir Allan Powell, as • Chairman of the Food Council, is well qualified to supervise the execution of a measure whose mithors protest their determination that it 'shall not raise the cost of living. As for Sir Sydney Chapman; his appointment represents a double defiance of the Chancellor's own canon ruling out civil servants and economists in this connexion. But two blacks in this case evidently mike. a white, and Sir Sydney, particularly in view of his experience of international tariff discussions at Geneva, should be a valuable member of the Committee.

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