Lord Salisbury mentioned on Monday night the names of the
Oxford Commission, which consists of seven members. Lord Selborne is to be its president. The other six are to be Sir Henry Maine, the Right Hon. Montague Bernard, Mr. Justice Grove, Lord Redesdale, Dr. Burgon (Dean of Chichester), and Mr. Matthew White Ridley (M.P. for North Northumberland). We have commented on the constitution of this Commission else- where, and shown how unlikely it is that, acting, as it must, in connection with three delegates from any College to be affected by any statute, it will pass any statute to which such College would seriously object. But we may add here, that Lord Salisbury has conceded to the criticism of the Oxford authorities an appeal to the Queen in Council not only on the validity of a statute, but on the policy of it. The effect of that will be, we take it, to render resistance to change even more effective, for an appeal on the policy of an enactment against the decision of the Commission is, of course, not the sort of machinery that can be used for the purpose of making a reform more thorough, but only for the purpose of attenuating it. On the whole, the Oxford Commission bids fair to be a machinery for effecting only the minimum of change which would be supposed likely to prevent further change. Also the Commission is to be allowed only four years for its operations, instead of seven.
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