But it has only been accomplished by long and patient conservation of its slender reserves. Mr. Conacher, it used to be said, during his arduous and energetic management, was "improving the Cambrian in the dark." To his successors has been bequeathed the advantage of bringing that quiet sowing to a fruitful and more apparent harvest. Mr. Conacher was succeeded in the secretariat by another wise and diligent officer, the late Mr. Richard Brayne, whose subsequent retirement to a quiet life in the seclusion of the Shropshire village of Kinnerley, was a matter of regret to all who knew and realised his sterling service to the Company. On the managerial side of the joint-office which Mr. Conacher vacated, following the comparatively short but bustling reign of Mr. Alfred Aslett (during which much was done to redeem the line from an unlucky reputation for unpunctuality that had become locally proverbial), and that of the late Mr. C. S. Denniss, the Company were fortunate in securing for this responsible office, Mr. Samuel Williamson, trained under Mr. Conacher's tutelage, and thus specially fitted to continue that wise and far-seeing policy which had marked his instructor's methods. Under Mr. Williamson's guiding hand, still further assisted in very valuable fashion by Mr. Conacher, when, for a few years before his death, in 1911, he was called to the chair of the Board, and since then by a Board of which Major David Davies, M.P., the grandson of one of the foremost of the Cambrian's pioneers is chairman, the financial position of the Company has very materially improved. This is reflected in the terms of amalgamation with the Great Western Company. In 1908 the stockholders of the Company received the sum of 96,556 pounds, but such was the rapid improvement in the Company's position that in 1913 they received 119,005 pounds, that is to say, in the space of five years the amount increased by 23.25 per cent., and it was on this basis that the negotiations with the Great Western Company were carried through in 1922, because for the period from 4th August, 1914, to 15th August, 1921, under the arrangement with the Government, the profits of the Company were fixed on the 1913 basis. Commencing as from 1st January, 1922, the terms of amalgamation give to the proprietors of the Cambrian Company an immediate annual income of 119,307 pounds, and this will be increased as from 1st January, 1929, by a further annual sum of 18,161 pounds, assuming the dividend on the Ordinary Stock of the Great Western Company remains as at present, viz:--7.25% per annum, thus making a total of 137,468 pounds. In addition to this improvement, the Company, on the one hand, during the period from 1909 to 1913, cleared off a heavy debt, and, on the other hand, built up very substantial reserves and, in fact, at the end of 1913, the financial position of the Company was stronger than it had ever been.