SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
1887 he made an extended tour through Europe, and upon returning 
to Sydney resumed his association with the University, being 
Lecturer in English Literature for four or five years, and acting as 
Examiner in German, French, History, and English. Then the law 
claimed his attention, and after acting for a time as associate to the late 
Mr. Justice Windeyer, he was called to the Bar in 1890. 
Five years later Mr. Piddington stood for the Legislative Assembly 
for the Tamworth electorate, and succeeded in defeating the late Sir 
George Dibbs. At the next election he himself was beaten. He entered 
keenly into the Federal controversies of 1897 and» 1898, and his interest 
in political questions being maintained, he contributed freely to the 
press. Then he devoted himself uninterruptedly to the practice of his 
profession until 1911, when he was appointed a Royal Commission on 
the question of shortage of labour, and factory employment. Upon the 
presentation of his Report, the State took immediate steps to procure the 
immigration of skilled tradesmen. The following year ,he attended the 
Congress of the Universities of the Empire, in London, having been 
elected in 1910 to the Senate of the Sydney University. In 1913 he 
was made a K.C. In 1915 the University of Melbourne conferred 
upon Mr. Piddington the honour degree of M.A. “as of special grace.” 
In 1913, when the numerical strength of the High Court Bench was 
increased, Mr. Piddington was one of those who was appointed; but 
he resigned the position for private reasons only. The same year he was 
offered and accepted the position of chairman of the Inter-State Com- 
mission which was then being created. His colleagues were Mr. George 
Swinburne and Mr. N. C. Lockyer. The work which that Commission 
has done is well known. Upon the commerce side, the Tariff Investiga- 
tion led to an exploration of all the principal trades of the Common- 
wealth, and the Reports which were furnished were generally regarded as 
a most complete statement of the pros and cons of the various items 
inquired into. The Report on British Trade in the South Pacific was 
another comprehensive survey of a new field of inquiry. Prior to the 
- accumulation of the facts gained by the Inter-State Commission, the 
only information available was scattered through various publications 
and reports, and was of a piecemeal nature. The Report of this body 
represents the only official and systematic account of trade in the South 
Pacific that has been compiled. The Reports on High Prices were the 
fruit of another important investigation. 
The judgment delivered by Mr. Piddington in 1915 upon a dispute 
arising out of the action of the New South Wales Government in 
acquiring the whole of the wheat crop of that State will be fresh in the 
memory of most people. The point of the judgment was the power 
of the State to acquire property within its boundaries as part of the 
law relating to title, and as distinct from the law relating to commerce. 
Through the acquisition by the State of wheat within its boundary the 
Government was enabled to seize wheat that was under contract to be 
delivered outside the State, without violating the freedom of Inter- 
State trade. The question at issue in the argument before the Inter- 
State Commission was entirely new, and various Acts of different States 
have depended for their validity upon the principles involved in that 
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