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.