CHAPTER XXIX.

THE GENERAL MANAGERS' CONFERENCE, GOODAY'S DINNER, AND DIVERS MATTERS

Soon after the Vice-Regal Commission had concluded its public sittings, and long before its Reports were issued, I had the pleasure of receiving from the associated companies a cordial minute of appreciation of the work I had done, accompanied by a handsome cheque. Nor was this mark of appreciation confined to me. My friend, Croker Barrington, Solicitor to the Committee, who had given yeoman service, and my capable assistants, were not overlooked.

Sir William Goulding was proud of his chairmanship, and well he might be, for during the long and trying period of the Inquiry he kept his team well together and (no easy task) discharged the duties of Chairman with admirable tact and ability. He was well entitled to the Resolution of cordial thanks which the associated companies accorded to him. I should, I feel, be lacking in gratitude if I failed to acknowledge also the invaluable help afforded me by my brother managers, help ungrudgingly and unstintingly given.

The Irish railways did not stand still. Their march along the path of progress and improvement continued sans interruption. From 1906 to 1910 (the Commission period) railway business, measured by receipts, advanced in Ireland by seven per cent., compared with six per cent. in England and three per cent. in Scotland!

In November, 1909, as was my habit unless prevented by other important duties, I attended the General Managers' Conference at the Railway Clearing House in London, and to my surprise and delight was unanimously elected Chairman of the Conference for the ensuing year, the first and only occasion on which the Manager of an Irish railway has been selected to fill that office.

The Conference consists of the General Managers of all railways who are parties to the London Clearing House, which means all the principal railways of the United Kingdom. Other Conferences there were such as the Goods Managers', the Superintendents', the Claims Conference, etc., but it was the General Managers' Conference that dealt with the most important matters.

I remember that, in returning thanks for my election, I ventured on a few remarks which I thought appropriate to the occasion. Amongst other things I said it was breaking new ground for the Conference to look to Ireland for a Pope, but that in doing so they exhibited a catholicity of outlook which did them honor; and I added that, in filling the high office to which they had elected me, though I should certainly never pretend to the infallibility of His Holiness, I should no doubt find it necessary at times to exercise his authority. At ten o'clock in the morning this little attempt at pleasantry seemed to be rather unexpected, but it raised a laugh, which, of course, was something to the good. The Conference was a businesslike assembly that prided itself on getting through much work with little talk--an accomplishment uncommon at any time, and particularly uncommon in these latter days. In these restless days when--

"What this troubled old world needs, Is fewer words and better deeds."

My year of office quickly passed and I got through it without discredit, indeed my successor to the chair, Sir (then Mr.) Sam Fay, writing me just after his election, said that I "had won golden opinions," and expressed the hope that he would do as well. Of course he did better, for he was far more experienced than I in British railway affairs, and this was only his modesty. My friend Sir William (then Mr.) Forbes was my immediate predecessor as Chairman, and to him I was indebted for the suggestion to the Conference that I should succeed him in the occupancy of the chair.

Early in the year 1910 a delightful duty devolved upon me, the duty of presiding at a farewell dinner to J. F. S. Gooday, General Manager of the Great Eastern Railway, to celebrate his retirement from that position, and his accession to the Board of Directors. For some years it had been the custom, when a General Manager retired, for his colleagues to entertain him to dinner, and for the Chairman of the Conference to officiate as Chairman at the dinner. Gooday's brother Managers flocked to London from all parts of the kingdom to do him honor, for whilst he was esteemed for his ability as a manager, he was loved for his qualities as a man. Of refined tastes, including a penchant for blue china, being a thriving bachelor, he was able to gratify them. We were so fond of him that the best of dinners was not enough, in our estimation, to worthily mark the occasion and to give him the pleasure he wished, and we presented to him some rare blue vases which Cousin Pons himself would have been proud to possess.

By virtue of my office of Chairman of the Conference, I also, during 1910, sat as a member of the Council of the Railway Companies' Association. This Association, of which I have not yet spoken, merits a word or two. As described by its present Secretary, Mr. Arthur B. Cane, it is "a voluntary Association of railway companies, established for the purpose of mutual consultation upon matters affecting their common interests, and is the result of a gradual development." It dates back as far as the year 1854, when a meeting of Railway Directors was held in London to consider certain legislative proposals which resulted in the Railway and Canal Traffic Act of that year. In its present form it consists of all the principal railway companies of the United Kingdom, each Company being represented by its Chairman, Deputy Chairman, General Manager and Solicitor. A Director of any so associated Company, who is a Member of Parliament, is also ex officio a member of the Association. As its membership increased it was found that the Association was inconveniently large for executive purposes, and some twenty years or so ago a Council was formed with power to represent the Association on all questions affecting general railway interests. At this moment this Council is engaged in looking after the interests of the railway companies in the matter of the great Ways and Communications Bill. By the suffrages and goodwill of my colleagues in Ireland, who had the election of one member, I remained on the Council till the end of the year 1912. Mr. Cane states that "The Association has always preserved its original character of a purely voluntary association, and has been most careful to safeguard the independence of its individual members." Also, that it has "been expressly provided by its constitution that no action shall be taken by the Council unless the members are unanimous." For many years Sir Henry Oakley was its honorary secretary, performing con amore the duties which were by no means light, but in 1898 it was resolved to appoint a paid secretary and to establish permanent offices, which now are located in Parliament Street, Westminster. Mr. (now Sir Guy) Granet was the first paid secretary, Mr. Temple Franks succeeded him, and Mr. Cane, as I have already mentioned, is the present occupant of the office.

In the autumn of 1910 I visited the English Lakes and spent a fortnight in that beautiful district, in the company, for the first few days, of Walter Bailey; and during the latter part of the fortnight, with E. A. Pratt as a companion. It was the last holiday Bailey and I spent together, though happily at various intervals we afterwards met and dined together in London, and our letters to each other only ended with his lamented death.

In the year 1913 a new form of Railway Accounts came into operation. This new form became compulsory for all railways by the passing, in 1911, of the Railway Companies (Accounts and Returns) Act. This Act is the last general railway enactment that I shall have to mention, for no legislation of importance affecting railways was passed between 1911 and 1913; and since the war began no such legislation has even been attempted, excepting always the Ways and Communications Bill which, as I write, is pursuing its course through the House of Commons.

The form of half-yearly accounts prescribed by the Regulation of Railways Act, 1868, admirable as they were, in course of time were found to be insufficient and unsatisfactory. They failed to secure, in practice, such uniformity as was necessary to enable comparisons to be made between the various companies, and in 1903 a Committee of Railway Accountants was appointed by the Railway Companies' Association to study the subject, with the view of securing uniformity of practice amongst British railways in preparing and publishing their accounts. This Committee, after an expenditure of much time and trouble, prepared a revised form, but the companies failed to agree to their general adoption, and without legislation, compulsion could not of course be applied. This led to the Board of Trade, who were keen on uniformity, appointing, in 1906, a Departmental Committee on the subject. On this Committee sat my friend Walter Bailey. The Committee heard much evidence, considered the subject very thoroughly, and recommended new forms of Accounts and Statistical Returns, which were (practically as drawn up) embodied in the Act of 1911, and are now the law of the land. From the shareholders' point of view the most important changes are the substitution of annual accounts for half-yearly ones, and the adoption of a uniform date for the close of the financial year. In addition to the many improvements in the direction of clearness and simplicity which the new form of accounts effected, the following two important changes were made:--

(1) All information relating to the subsidiary enterprises of a company to be shown separately to that relating to the railway itself

(2) A strict separation to be made of the financial statements from those which were of a purely statistical character

The first of these alterations had become desirable from the fact that practically all the larger railway companies had, in the course of years, added to their railway business proper such outside enterprises as steamships, docks, wharves, harbours, hotels, etc.

One bright morning, in the autumn of 1911, I was summoned to the telephone by my friend the Right Honorable Laurence A. Waldron, then a Director of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, and now its Chairman. He said there was a vacancy on the Kingstown Board; and, supposing the seat was offered to me, would I be free to accept it? As everybody knows, it is not usual for a railway manager, so long as he remains a manager, to be a director of his own or of any other company; so, "I must consult my Chairman," said I. The Dublin and Kingstown being a worked, not a working line, the duties of its directors, though important are not onerous, and my Chairman and Board readily accorded their consent. Such was my first happy start as a railway director.

The Dublin and Kingstown has the distinction of being the first railway to be constructed in Ireland. Indeed, for five years it was the only railway in that country. Opened as far back as 1834, it was amongst the earliest of the railway lines of the whole United Kingdom. The Stockton and Darlington (1825), the Manchester and Liverpool (1830), and the Dundee and Newtyle (1831), were its only predecessors. Soon after its construction it was extended from Kingstown to Dalkey, a distance of 1.75 miles. This extension was constructed and worked on the atmospheric system, a method of working railways which failed to fulfil expectations, with the result that the Dalkey branch was, in 1856, changed to an ordinary locomotive line.

The atmospheric system of working railways found favour for a time, and was tried on the West London Railway, on the South Devon system, and in other parts of Great Britain, also in France, but nowhere was it permanently successful. The reason of the failure of the system on the Dalkey extension, Mr. Waldron tells me (and he knows all about his railway, as a Chairman should) was due to the impossibility of keeping the metal disc airtight. The disc, shaped like a griddle, was edged with leather which had to be heavily greased to enable it to be drawn through the pipe from which the air was pumped out, in order to create a vacuum, and the rats, like nature, abhorring a vacuum, gnawed the greasy leather, letting in the air, and bringing the train to a standstill!

The Kingstown Railway was also interesting in another respect, as illustrating the opposition which confronted railways in those early days. There was a Mr. Thomas Michael Gresham, who was the owner of the well-known Gresham Hotel in Dublin, and largely interested in house property in Kingstown--Gresham Terrace there is called after him. He organised a successful opposition to the Dublin and Kingstown Railway being allowed--though authorised by Parliament--to go into Kingstown, and its terminus was for some years Salthill Station (Monkstown) a mile away. Mr. Gresham's action was so highly appreciated--incredible as it now appears--that he was presented with a testimonial and a piece of plate for his "spirited and patriotic action." I have adorned this book with a photograph of the salver which, with the inscription it bears, will I think, in these days, be not uninteresting.

The year 1911 was darkened for me by the shadow of death. During its course I lost my wife, who succumbed to an illness which had lasted for several years, an illness accompanied with much pain and suffering borne with great courage and endurance.