Our almost daily intercourse was intimate and frank. Sometimes we wandered into the pleasant fields of poetry and literature, but never to the neglect of business. He had an advantage that I greatly envied; a splendid memory; could repeat verse after verse, stanza upon stanza, whole cantos almost, from his favourite poet, Byron. It was at the half-yearly meetings of shareholders (they were held half-yearly in his day) that he specially shone, not in his address to them (for that he would persist in reading) but in the after proceedings when the heckling began. This, during his chairmanship, was often severe enough, for owing to unavoidably increased expenditure, dividends were diminishing and shareholders, in consequence, were in anything but complacent mood. Question time always put him on his mettle. Then his mother-wit came out, his lively humour and practical common sense—all unstudied and natural. The effect was striking. Rarely did he fail in disarming criticism, producing harmony, and sending away dissentients in good temper, though some of them, I know, sometimes afterwards wondered how it came about that they had been so easily placated.
From 1903 to 1906 several Acts of Parliament affecting railways generally came into force, four of which were of sufficient importance to merit attention. The first, the Railways (Electric Power) Act, 1903, was a measure to facilitate the introduction and use of electrical power on railways, and invested the Board of Trade with authority to make Orders for that purpose, which were to have the same effect as if enacted by Parliament.
The second, the Railway Fires Act, 1905, was an Act to give compensation for damage by fires caused by sparks or cinders from railway engines, and increased the liability of railway companies. It inter alia, enacted that the fact that the offending engine was used under statutory powers should not affect liability in any action for damage.
Next came the Trades Disputes Act, 1906, a short measure of five clauses, but none the less of great importance; a democratic law with a vengeance! It is one of the four Acts which A. A. Baumann, in his recent book, describes as being “in themselves a revolution,” and of this particular Act he says it “placed the Trade Unions beyond the reach of the laws of contract and of tort.” It also legalised peaceful picketing, that particular form of persuasion with which a democratic age has become only too familiar.
Lastly, the Workmen’s Compensation Act, of 1906, an Act to consolidate and amend the law with respect to compensation to workmen for injuries suffered in the course of their employment, is on the whole a beneficial and useful measure, to which we have grown accustomed.
In these years I had other holiday trips abroad; some with my family to France and Switzerland, and two with my friend, John Kilkelly. One of these two was to Denmark and Germany; the other to Monte Carlo and the Riviera. In Germany, at Altona, we saw the Kaiser “in shining armour,” fresh from the autumnal review of his troops, though indeed I should scarcely say fresh, for he looked tired and pale, altogether different to the stern bronzed warrior depicted in his authorised photographic presentments which confronted us at every turn. Kilkelly was a busy, but never seemed an overworked man, due I suppose to some constitutional quality he enjoyed. Added to a good professional business of his own, he was Solicitor to the Midland, Crown Solicitor for County Armagh, Solicitor to the Galway County Council, and, in his leisure hours, farmed successfully some seven or eight hundred acres. He had a fine portly presence, and though modesty itself, could not help looking as if he were somebody, like the stranger in London, accosted by Theodore Hook in the Strand, who was of such imposing appearance that the wit stopped him and said: “I beg your pardon, sir, but, may I ask, are you anybody in particular?”
At Monte Carlo we both lost money but revelled in abundant sunshine, and contemplated phases of humanity that to us were new and strange. Soon we grew tired of the gaming table and its glittering surroundings, bade it adieu, and explored other parts of the Riviera, moving at our ease from scene to scene and from place to place.
Kilkelly was an excellent travelling companion, readily pleased, and taking things as they came with easy philosophy. But never more shall we travel together, at home or abroad. A year ago, at the age of 82, he passed from among us on the last long journey which we all must take.
Requiescat in pace!