On Friday week Mr. W. E. Forster asked in the
House -what steps were to be taken to carry out the recommendations of the committee of last year with respect to keeping the Foreign Office up to the mark on commercial matters, for the purpose of instruct- ing foreign GoVemmente on occasion of alterations in their tariffs. Mr. Layard would not admit that the Foreign Office needed any change, but he did admit that one had been made. Mr. Spring Rice had been placed at the head of the commercial department of the Foreign Office, and it would be his duty to keep in commu- nication with the Board of Trade. Mr. Lowe pronounced an eulogy on Mr. Hammond, the permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign Office, whose examination, however, before the committee of last year showed him to be ludicrously ignorant of the commercial tariffs of foreign countries, even at a time when they were much dismissed. Mr. Lowe said that any educated man now knows political economy, and the Foreign Office ought to be quite coin- petent to deal with every commercial matter. 'Perhaps. But -political economy and a practical knowledge of the changes need- ful in foreign tariffs in matters of detail are not the same thing, and at all events the Foreign Office neglected commercial affairs disgracefully till Mr.- Forster's committee roused them from(their slumbers.
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