Joseph Tatlow - Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland

J >> Joseph Tatlow >> Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland

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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 Gresham Salver: salver.jpg]

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.

CHAPTER XXX.
FROM MANAGER TO DIRECTOR

I had long cherished the hope that when, in the course of time, I sought
to retire from the active duties of railway management, I might, perhaps,
be promoted to a seat on the Board of the Company. Presumptuous though
the thought may have been, I had the justification that it was not
discouraged by some of my Directors, to whom, in the intimacy of after
dinner talk, I sometimes broached the subject. But I little imagined the
change would come as soon as it did. I had fancied that my managerial
activities would continue until I attained the usual age for
retirement--three score years and five. On this I had more or less
reckoned, but

"_There's a divinity that shapes our ends_
_Rough hew them how we will_,"

and it came to pass that at sixty-one I exchanged my busy life for a life
of comparative ease. And this is how it came about. A vacancy on the
Board of Directors unexpectedly occurred in October, 1912, while I was in
Paris on my way home from a holiday in Switzerland and Italy. I there
received a letter informing me that the Board would offer me the vacant
seat if it really was my wish to retire so soon. Not a moment did I
hesitate. Such an opportunity might never come again; so like a prudent
man, I "grasped the skirts of happy chance," and the 5th day of November,
1912, saw me duly installed as a Director of the Company which I had
served as Manager for close upon twenty-two years. It was an early age,
perhaps, to retire from that active life to which I had been accustomed,
but as Doctor Johnson says, "No man is obliged to do as much as he can
do. A man is to have a part of his life to himself." I made the plunge
and have never since regretted it. It has given me more leisure for
pursuits I love, and time has never hung heavy on my hands. On the
contrary, I have found the days and hours all too short. Coincident with
this change came a piece of good fortune of which I could not have
availed myself had not this alteration in my circumstances taken place.
Whilst in Paris I heard that Mr. Lewis Harcourt (now Viscount Harcourt),
then Colonial Secretary, had expressed a wish to see me as I passed
through London, and on the 28th of October, I had an interview with him
at his office in the House of Commons. There was a vacancy, he informed
me, on the recently appointed Dominions' Royal Commission, occasioned by
the resignation of Sir Charles Owens, late General Manager of the London
and South-Western Railway, and a railway man was wanted to fill his
place. I had been mentioned to him; would I accept the position? It
involved, he said, a good deal of work and much travelling--voyages to
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and Newfoundland. Two
years, he expected, would enable the whole of the work to be done, and
about twelve months' absence from England, perhaps rather more, but not
in continuous months, would be necessary. It was a great honor to be
asked, and I had no hesitation in telling him that as I was on the eve of
being freed from regular active work, I would be more than happy to
undertake the duty, but--"But what?" he inquired. I was but very
recently married, I said, and how could I leave my wife to go to the
other side of the globe alone? No need to do that, said he; your wife
can accompany you; other ladies are going too. Then I gratefully
accepted the offer, and with high delight, for would I not see more of
the great world, and accomplish useful public work at the same time. Duty
and pleasure would go hand in hand. I need not hide the fact that it was
one of my then Directors, now my colleague, and always my friend, Sir
Walter Nugent, Baronet (then a Member of Parliament), who, having been
spoken to on the subject, was the first to mention my name to Mr.
Harcourt.

Soon after my retirement from the position of Manager of the Midland, my
colleagues of the Irish railway service, joined by the Managers of
certain steamship companies that were closely associated with the
railways of Ireland, entertained me to a farewell dinner. Mr. James
Cowie, Secretary and Manager of the Belfast and Northern Counties Section
of the Midland Railway of England (Edward John Cotton's old line),
presided at the banquet, which took place in Dublin on the 9th of
January, 1913. It was a large gathering, a happy occasion, though tinged
inevitably with regrets. Warm-hearted friends surrounded me, glad that
one of their number, having elected to retire, should be able to do so in
health and strength, and with such a smiling prospect before him.

When I became a Midland Director, Mr. Nugent was no longer Chairman of
the Board. He had been called hence, after only a few days' illness at
the Company's Hotel at Mallaranny, near Achill Island, where, in January,
1912, he had gone for a change. In him the company lost a faithful
guardian and I a valued friend. He was succeeded by Major H. C. Cusack
(the Deputy Chairman), who is still the Chairman of the Company. A
country gentleman of simple tastes and studious habits, Major Cusack,
though fond of country life, devotes the greater part of his time to
business, especially to the affairs of the Midland and of an important
Bank of which he is the Deputy-Chairman. The happy possessor of an
equable temperament and great assiduity he accomplishes a considerable
amount of work with remarkable ease. For his many estimable qualities he
is greatly liked.

On the 14th of November I made my _debut_ as a Dominions' Royal
Commissioner, at the then headquarters of the Commission, Scotland House,
Westminster. Soon the Commissioners were to start on their travels, and
were at that time holding public sittings and taking evidence.

This is a narrative of railway life at home, not of Imperial matters
abroad, and it is therefore clearly my duty not to wander too far from my
theme; nevertheless my readers will perhaps forgive me if in my next
chapter I give some account of the Commission and its doings. The fact
that I was placed on the Commission chiefly because I was a railway man
is, after all, some excuse for my doing so.

CHAPTER XXXI.
THE DOMINIONS' ROYAL COMMISSION, THE RAILWAYS OF THE DOMINIONS AND EMPIRE
DEVELOPMENT

For the first time in the history of the British Empire a Royal
Commission was appointed on which sat representatives of the United
Kingdom side by side with representatives of the self-governing
Dominions. This Commission consisted of eleven members--six representing
Great Britain and Ireland and five (one each) the Dominions of Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, and Newfoundland. The
Commission came into being in April, 1912. It was the outcome of a
Resolution of the Imperial Conference of 1911. The members of that
Conference and of others which preceded it had warmly expressed the
opinion that the time had arrived for drawing closer the bonds of Empire;
that with the increase in facilities for communication and intercourse
there had developed a deepened sense of common aims and ideals and a
recognition of common interests and purposes; and that questions were
arising affecting not only Imperial trade and commerce but also the many
other inter-relations of the Dominions and the Mother Country which
clamantly called for closer attention and consideration. The time at the
command of the Conference was found to be too short for such a purpose,
and it was to study problems thus arising, and to make practical
recommendations that our Commission was appointed.

The individuals forming the Commission were, first and foremost, Lord
D'Abernon (then Sir Edgar Vincent). He was our Chairman, the biggest man
of us all; ex-banker, financial expert, accomplished linguist; a
sportsman whose horse last year won the Irish St. Leger; an Admirable
Crichton; an excellent Chairman. Then came Sir Alfred Bateman, retired
high official of the Board of Trade, a master of statistics and
unequalled in experience of Commissions and Conferences. He was our
Chairman in Canada and Newfoundland and a most capable Chairman he made.
Sir Rider Haggard, novelist, ranked third; a master of fact as well as of
fiction; a high Imperialist, and versed both theoretically and
practically in agriculture and forestry. Next came Sir William (then
Mr.) Lorimer of Glasgow, a man of great business experience, an expert
authority in all matters appertaining to iron and steel and in fact all
metals and minerals. He was Chairman of the North British Locomotive
Company and of the Steel Company of Scotland, also a Director of my old
company, the Glasgow and South-Western Railway. Then Mr. Tom Garnett
(christened Tom), an expert in the textile trade of Lancashire, owning
and operating a spinning mill in Clitheroe; a good business man as well
as a student of "high politics," a scholar and a gentleman. Of the last
and least, my humble self, I need not speak, as with him the reader is
well acquainted.

Canada's representative was the Right Honorable Sir George Foster,
Minister of Trade and Commerce, steeped in matters of State, experienced
in affairs, a keen politician and a gifted orator.

Australia selected as her representative Mr. Donald Campbell, a clever
man, well read and of varied attainments, sometime journalist, editor,
lawyer, Member of Parliament, and I don't know what else.

The Honorable Sir (then Mr.) J. R. Sinclair was New Zealand's excellent
choice. A barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of his country,
he had retired from practice but was actively engaged in various
commercial and educational concerns and was a member of the Legislative
Council of New Zealand.

South Africa's member was, first, Sir Richard Solomon, High Commissioner
for the Union of South Africa in London. He died in November, 1913, when
Sir Jan Langerman took his place. Sir Jan was an expert in mining, ex-
President of the Rand Chamber of Mines, and ex-Managing Director of the
Robinson Group, also a Member of the Legislative Assembly of South
Africa. Keen and clever in business and a polished man of the world, he
was a valuable addition to the Commission.

Lastly, Newfoundland was represented by the Honorable Edgar (now Sir
Edgar) Bowring, President and Managing Director of a large firm of
steamship owners. He was experienced in the North Atlantic trade, in
seal, whale and cod fishing and other Newfoundland industries. He was
also a member of the Newfoundland Legislative Council.

Such were the members of the Commission. All endowed with sound common
sense and some gifted with imagination.

Shortly stated the main business of the Commission was to inquire into
and report upon:--

(a) The natural resources of the five self-governing Dominions and the
best means of developing these resources

(b) The trade of these parts of the Empire with the United Kingdom, each
other, and the rest of the world

(c) Their requirements, and those of the United Kingdom, in the matter of
food and raw materials, together with the available sources of supply

The Commission was also empowered to make recommendations and suggest
methods, consistent with then existing fiscal policy, by which the trade
of each of the self-governing Dominions with the others, and with the
United Kingdom, could be improved and extended.

Mr. E. J. Harding, C.M.G., was our Secretary. An Oxford man of
distinction, a member of the permanent staff of the Colonial Office,
studious, enthusiastic, energetic, of rare temper, tact and patience, he
was all such a Commission could desire. He and three or four assistants,
with local officers selected by the Governments in each of the Dominions,
one and all most capable men, formed a Secretariat that served us well.

The Commission started operations by taking evidence in London in the
autumn of 1912, but its main work lay in the Dominions, and on the 10th
of January, 1913, we sailed for Australia and New Zealand, touching at
Fremantle (Western Australia), Adelaide (South Australia), Melbourne
(Victoria), and Hobart (Tasmania) on our way.

In New Zealand we travelled through the island from south to north,
staying in that beautiful country for nearly a month, and holding
sittings in the principal cities. One sitting we held in the train--a
record surely for a Royal Commission. Easter intervening, we indulged in
a few days' holiday in the wonderful Rotorua district, where we enjoyed
its hot springs, its geysers, its rivers, its lakes and its Maori
villages. Returning to Sydney, we travelled northwards to Queensland and
there entered seriously upon our Australian duties, holding sittings at
Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart and Perth. In Queensland
we penetrated north as far as Bundaberg, Gladstone, Rockhampton and Mount
Morgan. In the other States tours were made through the irrigation areas
of New South Wales and Victoria, and visits paid to the mines at Broken
Hill (New South Wales), the Zeehan district and Mount Lyall (Tasmania);
Iron Knob (South Australia), and Kalgoorlie (Western Australia). Some of
our party penetrated to remoter parts of Australia such as Cairns
(Northern Queensland), Condobolin (west of New South Wales), and
Oodnadatta (Central Australia), still the furthest point of railway
extension toward the great Northern Territory.

To Tasmania we were able to devote a few days, taking evidence and
enjoying its wonderful beauty.

Finally, we left Australia on the 9th of June, four months after our
first landing on its sunny shores.

On arriving home it was determined that for the remainder of the year
1913 we should remain in England and take further evidence in London.

We resumed our travels in January, 1914, when we left for South Africa.
There we held a number of sittings, taking evidence at Capetown,
Oudtshoorn, Port Elizabeth, East London, Kimberley, Bloemfontein, Durban,
Pietermaritzburg, Pretoria and Johannesburg. Our journeys to these
various places were so planned as to involve our travelling over most of
the principal railway lines of the Union, so that we were able to see a
considerable portion of its beautiful scenery as well as its great mining
and pastoral industries. Our work finished, most of us returned direct
to England, but some were able to penetrate northwards into Rhodesia, and
return by way of the East Coast of Africa.

It was our intention, after taking further evidence in London, to proceed
to Canada and Newfoundland, and to return home before the winter began,
when we looked forward to making our Final Report. This intention we
partially fulfilled, as in July, 1914, we sailed from Liverpool, and
after exchanging steamers at Rimouski, landed at St. John's,
Newfoundland. There we stayed for a few days whilst the crisis in Europe
deepened. We then travelled through the island by railway and crossed to
the Maritime Provinces of Canada. On that fatal day in August on which
war broke out we were in Nova Scotia. A few days after, the British
Government, considering that under such conditions we could not finish
our work in Canada, called us home. In common with many of our
countrymen we indulged in the hope that the duration of the war would be
a matter of months and not of years, and that we should be able to resume
our work in Canada in the autumn of 1915. But this was not to be.
However, in 1916, the Governments represented on the Commission came to
the conclusion that the completion of our work ought not to be longer
delayed, and accordingly, in August, 1916, we sailed again to Canada.

In the Maritime Provinces of Canada, in 1914, we visited Sydney, Cape
Breton, Halifax, the Annapolis Valley and Digby in Nova Scotia; St. John,
Fredericton and Moncton in New Brunswick, and Charlottetown in Prince
Edward Island.

In 1916 the resumption of our Canadian work began at Montreal.
Thereafter, the great mining districts of Northern Ontario engaged our
attention, where, amongst other valuable products of the earth, nickel,
silver and gold abound. From Ontario we travelled westward to Prince
Rupert on the British Columbian coast, holding sittings at Saskatoon,
Edmonton and Prince Rupert. We then proceeded by steamer, through
glorious scenery, southward to Victoria, Vancouver Island. At Victoria
and also at Vancouver we took evidence. From Vancouver we journeyed
eastwards by the Canadian Pacific Railway over the Rockies, breaking our
journey and holding sittings at Vernon, in the Okanagan Valley, at
Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec, devoting
several days each to many of these places. Whilst in British Columbia we
also visited the lower part of the Okanagan Valley, and whilst in the
prairie provinces stopped at Medicine Hat (where the gas lamps burn day
and night because it would cost more in wages than the cost of the gas to
employ a man to turn them out). In Ontario we visited North Bay, Fort
William, Port Arthur, Guelph and Niagara Falls. In addition some of us
travelled through the mining districts of British Columbia, and also
inspected the asbestos mines at Thetford, in the Province of Quebec.

This is the bald outline of our long and interesting journeys, which by
land and sea comprehended some 70,000 miles. How bald it is I keenly
feel, and it would afford me more pleasure than I can tell to give some
account of our wonderful experiences--of the delight of sailing in
southern seas; of the vast regions of the mainland of Australia; of the
marvels of its tropical parts; of the entrancing beauty of New Zealand
and Tasmania; of the wonders of Canada, the variety of its natural
productions, its magnificent wheat-growing areas; of the charm of South
Africa with its glorious climate and its beautiful rolling veldt. What a
memory it all is! Tranquil seas, starlit nights, the Southern Cross,
noble forests, glorious mountains, mighty rivers, boundless plains; young
vigorous communities under sunny skies, with limitless space in which to
expand. I should love to enlarge on these things, but a sense of
proportion and propriety restrains my pen.

In all the Dominions we were received with the warmest of welcomes and
most generous hospitality--governments, municipalities and corporations
vieing with each other in doing us honor, whilst private individuals
loaded us with kindness. It was clear that our mission was popular, and
clear too that affection for the old country was warm and lively. I
cannot attempt to narrate all that was done for us--banquets, receptions,
excursions, garden parties, concerts--time and space will not allow. But
I cannot be altogether silent about the splendid special train which the
South African Government placed at our disposal from the time we left
Capetown until we reached Johannesburg, which (taking evidence at the
various places on the way) occupied several weeks. This sumptuous train
consisted of dining car, sleeping cars and parlour car, was liberally
staffed and provisioned; with a skilful _chef_, polite and attentive
waiters and attendants. It was practically our hotel during those forty
days or more.

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