1906), in the month
of July, a Vice-Regal Commission was appointed to inquire into the
subject, and the Terms of Reference to the Commission included these
words:--

"_What causes have retarded the expansion of traffic upon the Irish
lines and their full utilization for the development of the
agricultural and industrial resources of the country; and, generally,
by what methods the economical, efficient, and harmonious working of
the Irish Railways can best be secured_."

As the newspapers said, the Irish Railway Companies were put upon their
trial. As soon as the Commission was appointed the Companies (19 in
number) assembled at the Railway Clearing House in Dublin to discuss the
situation, and decide upon a course of action. Unanimously it was
resolved to act together and to make a common defence. A Committee,
consisting of the Chairman and General Managers of the seven principal
companies, was appointed and invested with full power to act in the
interest of all, as they should find desirable. The Right Honourable Sir
William (then Sir William) Goulding, Baronet, Chairman of the Great
Southern and Western Railway, was appointed Chairman of the Committee. I
was appointed its Secretary, and Mr. Croker Barrington its Solicitor. It
was further decided that one general case for the associated railways
should be prepared and presented to the Commission by one person, who
should also (under the direction of the Committee) have charge of all
proceedings connected with the Inquiry. I, to my delight, was
unanimously selected as that person, and to enable me to do the work
properly, I was allowed to select three assistants. My choice fell upon
G. E. Smyth, John Quirey, and Joseph Ingram, and I could not have chosen
better. We were allotted an office in the Railway Clearing House; my
assistants gave their whole time to the work, and I gravitated between
Broadstone and Kildare Street, for of course I had to look after the
Midland Great Western as well as the Commission business. That I could
not, like Sir Boyle Roche's bird, be in two places at once, was my
greatest disappointment. I may record here that each of my assistants
has since, to borrow an Americanism, "made good." Smyth is now Traffic
Manager of the Great Southern and Western Railway; Quirey is Chief
Accountant of the Midland Railway of England, and Ingram became Secretary
of the Irish Clearing House, from which be has been recently promoted t