In 1889 there came into operation the _Regulation of Railways Act_. It invested the Board of Trade with power to order any company to adopt block working, to interlock all points and signals, and to use on all trains carrying passengers automatic continuous brakes. Before issuing the order the Board consented to hear any representations which the railways desired to make. The smaller companies, upon which the expenditure involved would press very hardly, and the circumstances of whose traffic seemed scarcely to require the same elaborate precautions for safety in working as the bigger and more crowded systems, banded together and waited on the Board of Trade. Upon me devolved the duty of presenting the case for the smaller Irish companies, and upon Conacher, of the Cambrian, for the smaller English lines. How finely Conacher spoke I well remember. He had an excellent voice, possessed in a high degree the gift of concise and forcible expression, and his every word told. But our eloquence accomplished little--some small modification regarding mixed trains, and that was all. Many of the lines in Ireland serving districts where population is scanty, traffic meagre, and trains consequently infrequent, could well have been spared the costly outlay which the Act involved. Three or four trains each way per day represent the train service on many of these small railways, and some of the sections of the larger lines warrant little more. Take, for instance, the case of the Midland Great-Western. On 330 out of its 538 miles not more than six trains each way in the 24 hours are required, and they could probably be reduced without hurting anyone. These figures relate not to the exceptional war time in which I pen these lines, when stern necessity has sweepingly reduced the train service, but to pre-war days when normal conditions prevailed. Half a dozen trains each way per day! In England there are as many, or more, in the hour! The Act of 1889 also dealt with the working hours of railway men whose duty involved the safety of trains or passengers, and required each company to make periodical returns of those employed for longer hours than were to be named from time to time by the Board of Trade; and it contained further a useful clause to the effect that the fares were in future to be printed on passenger tickets. I should not be surprised if this simple little clause has not brought more real satisfaction to the minds and hearts of the people of the British Isles than all the laboured legislation on railway rates and charges.