In these years I had other holiday trips abroad; some with my family to France and Switzerland, and two with my friend, John Kilkelly.  One of these two was to Denmark and Germany; the other to Monte Carlo and the Riviera.  In Germany, at Altona, we saw the Kaiser “in shining armour,” fresh from the autumnal review of his troops, though indeed I should scarcely say fresh, for he looked tired and pale, altogether different to the stern bronzed warrior depicted in his authorised photographic presentments which confronted us at every turn.  Kilkelly was a busy, but never seemed an overworked man, due I suppose to some constitutional quality he enjoyed.  Added to a good professional business of his own, he was Solicitor to the Midland, Crown Solicitor for County Armagh, Solicitor to the Galway County Council, and, in his leisure hours, farmed successfully some seven or eight hundred acres.  He had a fine portly presence, and though modesty itself, could not help looking as if he were somebody, like the stranger in London, accosted by Theodore Hook in the Strand, who was of such imposing appearance that the wit stopped him and said:  “I beg your pardon, sir, but, may I ask, are you anybody in particular?”

At Monte Carlo we both lost money but revelled in abundant sunshine, and contemplated phases of humanity that to us were new and strange.  Soon we grew tired of the gaming table and its glittering surroundings, bade it adieu, and explored other parts of the Riviera, moving at our ease from scene to scene and from place to place.

Kilkelly was an excellent travelling companion, readily pleased, and taking things as they came with easy philosophy.  But never more shall we travel together, at home or abroad.  A year ago, at the age of 82, he passed from among us on the last long journey which we all must take.

   Requiescat in pace!

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
VICE-REGAL COMMISSION ON IRISH RAILWAYS, 1906-1910, AND THE FUTURE OF
RAILWAYS

In previous pages I have spoken of the manner in which the railways of Ireland had long been abused.  This abuse, as the years went on, instead of diminishing grew in strength if not in grace.  The Companies were strangling the country, stifling industry, thwarting enterprise; were extortionate, grasping, greedy, inefficient.  These were the things that were said of them, and this in face of what the railways were accomplishing, of which I have previously spoken.  Politics were largely at the bottom of it all, I am sure, and certain newspapers joined in the noisy chorus.  At length the House of Commons, during the Session of 1905, rewarded the agitators by adopting the following resolution:—­

“That in the opinion of this House, excessive railway rates and defective transit facilities, generally, constitute a serious bar to the advancement of Ireland and should receive immediate attention from the Government with a view to providing a remedy therefor.”

This Resolution bore fruit, for in the ensuing year (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:—­