It also promised to be a good property for our shareholders. Our dividend gradually increased; we had paid 5 per cent. and were well within sight of 6 per cent., when the whole circumstances of our dock traffic were changed by the Corporation introducing electricity into the working of their tramway system and extending their lines so as to parallel the Overhead Railway. We also suffered from the introduction of the telephone and from the substitution of steamers for sailing ships, and of large steamers for small steamers, all tending to reduce the number of men employed about the docks.
Still I hope and believe there is a future for our little railway, but it is heartbreaking work to run a railway which does not earn a dividend.
We have had many important people to visit our railway, affording as it does an excellent view of the docks, and we have always arranged a special train for their conveyance. Among others whom I have had the honour of escorting over the line are the present King and Queen when Prince and Princess of Wales. Our most amusing and difficult visitor was the Shahzada of Afghanistan. He had no idea of the value of time, and when we arrived at the end of our journey he called for his doctor and then for his apothecary, and it was useless my trying to impress upon his A.D.C. that the whole traffic of the line was being stopped while his Highness took a pill.
The Bank of Liverpool.
I was elected a director of the Bank of Liverpool in 1888, and became the chairman in 1898. It was during my chairmanship that the old bank in Water Street was pulled down and the new bank built, which I had the privilege of opening. I also initiated and conducted the negotiation for the purchase of Wakefield Crewdsons Bank in Kendal.
The Cunard Company.
I was elected a member of the board of directors of the Cunard Company in 1888, and found the work of looking after a great and progressive steamship company to be extremely interesting. For two years I was the deputy-chairman. I resigned this position as it required almost continual attendance at the Cunard offices, which I could not, with all my other engagements, possibly give.
To have been identified with the most forward policy in the shipping world has always been a source of great pride and pleasure to me.
A few years after I joined the board we built the "Lucania" and "Campania," steamers of 13,000 tons and 27,000 horse-power with a speed of 22 knots. They were in size and in speed a long way ahead of any steamer afloat, and created very general and great interest.