16 JANUARY 1904, Page 3

Mr. Chamberlain has completed his Tariff Commission, an additional list

of fourteen names, bringing the total up to fifty-eight, having been published on Wednesday. The new members include Sir Charles Elliott, the distinguished Indian civilian, formerly Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal ; Mr. Colmer, Secretary to the Canadian High Commissioner ; Mr. Leven- stein, the late president of the Manchester Chamber of Com- merce ; Sir Westby Perceval, formerly Agent-General for New Zealand and Tasmania ; and representatives of a variety of in- dustries, trades, and interests,—electrical engineering, chemical manufactures, brewing, baking, bacon-curing, market-garden- ing,&c. Mr. Chamberlain, it should be noted, has at last found two bankers—Mr. Vicary Gibbs, M.P., and Mr. Robert Littlejohn— to join his Commission, which met for the first time yesterday. We may note here that the efforts to claim the late Lord Salis- bury as a supporter of Mr. Chamberlain have elicited a very clear statement from Lord Robert Cecil. "It is right," he says in a letter to the Times of Wednesday, " to state that Lord Salisbury was opposed to Mr. Chamberlain's policy so far as it had been developed last summer. In particular, he disapproved of his proposal to put a preferential duty on corn and meat. In saying this, I do not mean it to be understood that Lord Salisbury was hostile to any imposition of duties on the imports from a foreign country for the purpose of compelling it to admit our exports on fair terms."