A further list of names added to Mr. Chamberlain's Tariff
Commission was published on Wednesday. Of these the most important are those of Sir Robert Herbert, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1871 to 1892; Sir George Ryder, who has just retired from the Chairman- ship of the Board of Customs ; Sir Cecil Clementi Smith, formerly Governor of the Straits Settlements ; and Sir John Cockburn, late Premier of South Australia. The other fifteen additional members represent various interests and industries,—cotton-spinning, sugar-refining, paper-making, machinery, boot and tobacco manufacture, the wine and grain trade. A further and final list, including representatives of the banking interest—hitherto conspicuously absent—is pro- mised in a few days. The Commission is certainly strengthened by the recent accessions ; but confidence in its mode of opera- tion will not be restored even by the significant concession on the part of the Tariff Reform League that "it will not come within the scope of the Commission to define the nature of the arrangements to be made with regard to Colonial trade, or to make representations with regard to the preferences which the Colonies can be asked to give." The whittling-down process has begun again; but the use of the word " define " instead of " suggest " would have been premature in the terms of refer- ence of a Royal Commission.
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