IMPERIAL COMMISSION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 17, 18 January 1913, Page 5

IMPERIAL COMMISSION.

Members’ Career.

A Representative Body.

The members of the Imperial Trade Commission will arrive in Australia next month. In view of this fact, a short outline of the career of each member should make interesting reading. The first six members mentioned below are the representatives of » the Mother-country, while the other represent South Africa, New Zealand, Newfoundland* and Australia respectively.

Sir Edgar Vincent, who was recently appointed permanent chairman of the commission } has had a notable diplomatic career, particularly in the Near East. In 1882, at the age of 25 years, he was appointed British, Belgian, and Dutch representative on the Council of the Ottoman Public Debt at Constantinople. The following year he was made president of the Council. He was financial adviser to the Egyption Government for six years, and was a strong force in the British reconstruction of Egypt. For eight.years he was governor of the Imperial Ottoman Bank at Constantinople, and was a member of the House of Commons from 1899 to 1906.

Sir H. Rider-Haggard is the wellknown novelist. His hobby is the study of agricultural subjects, while his wide knowledge of South Africa should be of particular value to the commission. During 1901 and 1902 he travelled through England, investigating the agricultural conditions and the rural population. He was a member of the commission to inspect Salvation Army settlements, chairman of the commission to report on unemployed labour, and also on coast erosion, and afforestation.

Sir Alfred Edmund Bateman, K.C. M.G., was born in 1844. He has been closely associated with various commissions, and has been decorated for his services to British trade. Amongst other things, h© was Master of the Girdlers’ Company in ' 1886, treasurer of the International Statistical Institute from 1897 to 1909, secretary to the International Sugar Conferences 1887 to 1889, Trad© and Treaties Committees 1890 to 1892, and British delegate for Portuguese and Spanish commercial negotiations between 1892 and 1894. He was responsible for the blue book of 1903, member of Tariff, Food,’ and Shipping Commission up to 1905, chairman of Advisory Committee on Commercial Intelligence from 1901 to 1905, and of the Anglo-French Pilotage Committee from 1910 to 1911.

Mr Joseph Tatlow has been manager for the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland since 1890. He was born in Sheffield in 1851, and entered the service of the Midland Rail--way. .at,. Cwby-iH-1867. ; —Seven - yewe—-

later he became manager of the Glasgow and South-Western Railway. He was appointed general manager of the Belfast and County Down Railway, and removed to Ireland in 1885. He was chairman of the Irish branch of the Railway Benevolent Institution, represented the Associated Irish Railway Companies in the proceedings before the Vice-Regal Commission on Irish Railways during 1906 and 1909, and gave evidence on behalf of the associated companies. He was also chairman of the General Managers’ Conference of the Railways of the United Kingdom in 1910.

Mr Tom Garnett is a leading cotton man in England. He is a member of the firm of Messrs T. Garnett and Sons, cotton spinners, Clitheroe, and a director of the Royal 'Exchange at Manchester.

Mr George Eulus Foster is the wellknown Canadian Minister for Trade and Commerce. He has ambitious ideas respecting the establishment of preferential trade relations between Canada and Australia, and takes a keen interest in all Imperial matters.

Mr William Lorimer is a director of the Glasgow and South-Western Railway Company, chairman of the North British Locomotive Company, and the steel company of Canada.

Sir Richard Solomon, K.C.M.G., lias been High Commisisoner for South Africa since 1910. He was born in Capetown in 1851. He was legal adviser to Lord Hosmead on his mission to Mauritius in 1886 to inquire into the affairs of the island; member for Temlraland in the Assembly of Cape Colony, and was At-torney-General of the Schreiner Ministry from 1898 to 1900. For the next two years he was legal adviser to Lord Kitchener, became AttorneyGeneral of the Transvaal during 1902 to 1907, and was appointed Acting-Lieut.-Governor of the Transvaal, between 1905-6. He represented South Africa at the Delhi Durbar, arid was Agent-General in London for the Transvaal from 1907 to 1910, when he was appointed to the position he now occupies.

Mr John Robert Sinclair, M.L.C., of New Zealand, was born at Anglesea, North Wales, in 1850. He became a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand in 1875. He is a notary public, and was chairman of the Board of Governors of the Dunedin Boys and Girls’ High Schools.

Mr Edgar Rennie Bowring, of St. John’s, Newfoundland, is a director of Messrs C. T. Bowring and Company, Limited, shipowners, of Liverpool, and is intimately associated with various financial and trading companies. Mr Donald Campbell, who has been representing the Commonwealth on the commission, hails from South Australia,