not present, something had happened, for he was not the man to disappoint his friends without grave cause. Voting seemed imminent. Robertson whispered to me, “For heaven’s sake, Tatlow, get on your legs again and keep the thing going; Findlay may be here any moment.” I was supposed to be the glibbest of speech of our party, and up I got. But Mr. Thompson (afterwards Sir James), the beau, was in the chair, and thought there had been talking enough. However, like the Irishman I was not, I went on, and—at that moment entered Sir George! The scene was changed; the day was won! A Sub-Committee of seven, three of whom were Colhoun, Robertson and myself, was appointed to follow up the matter, and ultimately the Irish proposal was adopted.
It was a very busy period, this year of 1892, and as interesting as busy. On the 20th June the Railway Rates and Charges (Athenry and Ennis Junction Railways) Order Confirmation Act, 1892, received the Royal Assent. It applied to all the railways in Ireland and contained the Revised Classification and Maximum Rates and Charges settled after long inquiries under the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, and which were to control the future rates to be charged by the companies. Only six months were allowed in which to revise all rates and bring them into conformity with the new classification and the new conditions—an absurdly short time, for the work involved was colossal. But it had to be done. Robert Morrison, Michael O’Neill and I, took off our coats and worked night and day. We had the satisfaction of accomplishing the task in the allotted time, which not every company was able to do. Generous, as always, Sir Ralph in his speech to the shareholders in February, 1893, said: “I wish to express that we are greatly indebted to Mr. Tatlow for the care and anxiety with which he has endeavoured to arrange this important rates matter. He has worked most energetically; has attended the Committees of the Board of Trade, and the Parliamentary Committee, and he is now seeing traders constantly. I may tell you that I and my brother directors place the most implicit reliance on our manager, and I am satisfied that anything he has done has been reasonable to the traders and for the benefit of the shareholders.” This was warm praise, and the more welcome, being, as it was, the spontaneous expression of what I knew he felt.
My meetings with the traders usually, but not invariably, resulted in friendly settlements. The great firm of Guinness and Company were not so easily satisfied, and offered a stout resistance which correspondence and conference failed to overcome. Under the Railway and Canal Traffic Act a mode of dealing with the impasse was provided by conciliation proceedings presided over by the Board of Trade. This we took advantage of, and after several meetings in London a compromise was effected. It was then that I met for the first time Mr. Francis Hopwood, who had just been appointed Secretary to the Railway Department of the Board of Trade. I liked his way and thought that conciliation could not be in better hands than his.
The Board of Trade is more or less a mythical body, but very practical I found it on these and all other occasions. Its proper designation is, I believe, “Committee of Privy Council for Trade.” This Committee was first appointed in Cromwell’s time, and was revised under Charles II., as “Committee of Privy Council for Trade and Foreign Plantations,” under which title it administered the Colonies. When the United States became independent, Burke in a scathing speech, moved and carried the abolition of this paid Committee, which included Gibbon as its Secretary. However, the Board of Trade could not be spared, and so it was restored by Order in Council in 1786. Under that order the principal officers of State, and certain members of the Privy Council, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, have, ex officio, seats on the Committee, although no record exists of His Grace having ever left his arduous duties at Lambeth to attend the Committee. Its jurisdiction extended as trade and commerce developed and railways appeared on the scene, and gradually it was divided into departments, and so the Board of Trade came into being. Like Topsy it “grow’d.” The Board of Trade is, in fact, a mere name, the president being practically the secretary for trade, the vice-president having, for 50 years past, been a Parliamentary secretary with duties similar to those of an under-secretary of State. At present, besides the president (who has usually a seat in the Cabinet), the Parliamentary secretary and a permanent secretary, there are six assistant secretaries (in late war time many more), each in charge of a department.
In charge of the railway department in 1893 was, as I have said, Mr. Francis Hopwood. He became Sir Francis in 1906, and from then onwards
advanced from office to office and from honour to honour, until, during his secretaryship of the Irish Convention in 1917, his public services were rewarded with a peerage. As railway secretary of the Board of Trade he was particularly distinguished for tact, strength and moderation. Singularly courteous and obliging on all occasions, I, personally, have been much indebted to him for help and advice.
But all was not sunshine and happiness in this busy year of 1892. A dark cloud of sorrow overshadowed it. On a fateful day in January I lost, with tragic suddenness, the younger of my two sons, a bright amiable boy, of a sunny nature and gentle disposition. He was accidentally killed on the railway.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE “RAILWAY NEWS,” THE INTERNATIONAL RAILWAY CONGRESS, AND A TRIP TO SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
In Chapter XX I recorded the death of my old friend W. F. Mills, which took place whilst I was writing that chapter. Now, as I pen these lines, I hear of the loss of another old familiar railway friend; not indeed a sentient being like you, dear reader, or him or me, yet a friend that lacked neither perception nor feeling.
The Railway News on Saturday, the 30th day of November, 1918, issued its last number, and, as a separate entity, ceased to be, its existence then merging into that of the Railway Gazette. I am sad and sorry for I knew it well. For forty years it was my week-end companion; for ten years or more, in the April of life, I contributed regularly to its pages; and never, during all the years, have its columns been closed to my pen. One of its editors, F. McDermott, has long been my friend, and its first editor, Edward McDermott, his father, a grand old man, was kind to me in my salad days and encouraged my budding scribbling proclivities. He and Samuel Smiles, the author of Self Help (then Secretary of the South Eastern Railway), were, in 1864, its joint founders.