of ‘Cymru Fu’ by writing words congenial to their spirit,—a work which Robert Burns did for Scottish melodies.” He was buried in Llanwnog churchyard, where a simple plate marks his resting place, and friends and neighbours who attended the funeral service on the following Sunday did not feel that it was out of place that it should have been based on the text “Know ye not that there is . . . a great man fallen this day.” They did know it, humble as his station might be; and more than one of his admirers has since visited the little deserted office where he worked on the Van line and ransacked its drawers and cupboards for hidden gems of poesy he might have left behind him. Alas! nothing more inspiring was ever found there than faded way-bills and torn invoices! But who shall say that there is no romance clinging close around even the humblest, and now the most woe-begone, of all the little offshoots of the Cambrian?
CHAPTER IX. CONSOLIDATION.
“Facility of communication begets ‘community of interests,’ which is the only treaty that is not a ‘scrap of paper.’”—
The Late Lord Fisher.
Lord John Russell, it is said, used, in conversation with Queen Victoria, to date all political development from the Revolution of 1688. If those mystic figures signalize the birthday of Whiggery, in the political world, in much the same way we may date the constitution of the Cambrian, as we know it to-day, from the year 1864. In more than one way it was a notable period in Welsh railway annals. The various independent links in the chain were either completed and wholly or partially in working order, or in course of construction. Thanks to the influential efforts of the Earl of Powis, arrangements had been made with the Post Office and the London and North Western Railway Company, through Sir Richard Moon, for the conveyance of mails from Shrewsbury to Borth, the then terminus. Through working arrangements were also in force among the various local companies, and it was obvious that the time had come to face the problems of future policy. These were not altogether of simple solution.
Very early in the year Mr. Abraham Howell was moved, in one of his frequent letters to the Earl of Powis, to warn his lordship that he scented “another crisis coming on in
the affairs of the Welsh Railways.” Once more there was division of opinion and “parties” were forming. Mr. Piercy and the majority of the directors were for extending “the” Welsh system so as to make it independent of the great companies and set aside existing agreements and obligations.” Mr. Howell himself, with Mr. Savin and a minority on the Board, inclined rather to the course of accommodation with circumstances, making the best of the lines and properties of the companies as they stood, avoiding extensions and increasing capital, while cultivating friendly arrangements with neighbouring companies and so avoiding as much as possible Parliamentary and legal conflicts.
After all the tribulations through which these undertakings had passed the more politic and pacific course certainly had its advantages, but one Parliamentary adventure could not easily be avoided. Whether the policy was to be one of splendid isolation or of neighbourly friendship, the moment was obviously ripe for some measure of internal consolidation, and powers were sought for this purpose. The Bill had to pass through the now familiar ordeal of battle, both in the Committee of the House of Commons and in the House of Lords, when many of the old arguments and some new ones were skilfully marshalled on behalf of the Great Western Railway Company and rolled on the tongue of eminent and eloquent counsel. Even the little Bishop’s Castle undertaking threw in its lot with the opposition, finding a powerful protagonist in Mr. Whalley. But the Cambrian had stout friends to put in the witness-box. Earl Vane proved a tough nut to crack in cross-examination. So did the Earl of Powis, still apparently tinged with a North Western bias. With the result that after much forensic oratory, closing appropriately on a reminder of “the troubles and difficulties the companies
had gone through,” and a well deserved “tribute to the energy and talent of their solicitor, Mr. Abraham Howell,” the Amalgamation Bill, excluding for the time being the Welsh Coast line, was passed into law in July, 1864.
It set up a joint board, limited to a minimum of six and a maximum of twelve, the first directors chosen being those who had similarly served the several independent companies, some of whom, of course, had acted on more than one of these concerns. The following year, some previous difficulties being removed, the Welsh Coast Railway was brought into the combine, and the Cambrian then assumed the organic shape in which it remained until the further amalgamation with the Mid-Wales Railway in 1904.