uch a
trifle. Again the "Cavalry" were in attendance and escorted the party to
the quarries and back.

The Royal visit to Ireland, on the whole, was an unqualified success, and
there were many who hoped and believed that the King's good will towards
the country and its people, and his remarkable gifts as a peacemaker,
would in some way help to a solution of the Irish question; but, alas!
that question is with us still, and when and how it will be solved no man
can tell. For myself, I am one of those who indulge in _hope_,
remembering that Time, in his healing course, has a way of adjusting
human misunderstandings and of bringing about the seemingly impossible.

It was in this year (1903) that I first met Charles Dent, the present
General Manager of the Great Northern Railway of England. He had been
appointed General Manager of the Great Southern and Western Railway in
succession to R. G. Colhoun. Dent and I often met. We found we could do
good work for our respective companies by reducing wasteful competition
and adopting methods of friendly working. In this we were very
successful. A man of few words, disdaining all unnecessary formalities,
but getting quickly at the heart and essence of things, it was always a
pleasure to do business with him.

In this year also I enjoyed some variety by way of an inquiry which I
made for the Board of Works, concerning certain proposed light railway
extensions, called the Ulster and Connaught, and which involved the
ticklish task of estimating probable traffic receipts and working
expenses--a task for which the gift of prophecy almost is needed. To
determine, in this uncertain world, the future of a railway in embryo
might puzzle the wisest; but, with the confidence of the expert, I faced
the problem and, I hope, arrived at conclusions which were at least
within a mile of the mark.

In 1904 that fine old railway veteran, Sir Ralph Cusack, resigned his
position of Chairman of the Midland and was succeeded by the Honourable
Richard Nugent, youngest son of the ninth Earl of Westmeath; Major H. C.
Cusack, Sir Ralph's nephew and son-in-law, becoming Deputy Chairman--the
first (excepting for a few brief months in 1903 when Mr. Nugent occupied
the position) the Midland ever had. With Sir Ralph's vacation of the
chair, autocratic rule on the Midland, which year by year, had steadily
been growing less, disappeared entirely and for ever. Well, Sir Ralph in
his long period of offic