Lord Stranleigh in his most silken voice. "Look what an example has been set within the past fortnight. All the railway managers of the kingdom said they would not do this and that. All the boards of directors were equally firm. On the other hand, their employees were irrevocably determined to bring on a strike, whereupon a moderate, sane man, like Mr. Lloyd George, President of the Board of Trade, gets the heads of both parties together, and instead of knocking them against one another as an impatient man like myself might be inclined to do, he talks soothingly, smoothes away difficulties, and, presto! here's the whole question settled. No strike: directors, shareholders, employees, all satisfied. Now, can't we, on a very, very small scale, do something similar, I enacting, as well as my inefficiency will allow, the part of Mr. Lloyd George, whose cloak, of course, is ludicrously too large for me."
"Lord Stranleigh, out of courtesy to yourself, I shall not declare this conference ended, and will take the trouble to make some explanation to you that may put this in a clearer light in your mind. A great railway company cannot be troubled by branches that do not belong to itself; that: are not under its own control. Branch lines rarely pay their cost of working, even under the most advantageous terms. They are merely feeders to the main line. But when a branch railway is under
