' • Yesterday week Mr. Sampson Lloyd raised a short
discussion in the House of Commons on the desirableness of having the Com- merce and Agriculture of the country attended to by a principal Secretary of State, who should always be a member of the Cabinet The general feeling of Members on all sides appeared to be that a recast of the duties of several Cabinet offices would be desirable ; that-
hat- the the duties of the President of the Council, for instance, in relation to cattle disease, should be transferred to some Minister whose province should be Commerce and Agriculture, and that some of the accidental duties of the Board of Trade might be handed over to other Ministers. But it was generally agreed that, so far as acting upon the tariffs of other countries is concerned, the influence of the British Ministry must be wielded by the Foreign Office, and yet that it is desirable to- have a Minister in the Cabinet whose task it would be to attend officially to the wishes of the commercial and agricultawal com- munity on these subjects. Mr. W. K Forster strongly supported that view, and Mr. Disraeli conceded that at some future day the Ministry might deal in some way with the proposal. It was not a bad occasion for the issue of a little bill on futurity, if there can ever be a good occasion for it, for certainly the creation of a separate Minister of Commerce and Agriculture can hardly be said to press. But Mr. Disraeli's delight in the creation of this very indifferent paper currency is a little too conspicuously marked.
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