o 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 c