325 CHAP. XXV. ADVANCE OF PUBLIC OPINION IN FAVOUR OF RAILWAYS. THE Grand Junction Railway was an important link in the new system of communication between London and the manufacturing districts of Lancashire. This line was projected as early as the year 1824, at the time when the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was under discussion. Mr. Stephenson then published a report on the subject.* Surveys were made, and plans were deposited. The canal proprietors and landowners opposed the bill, and it was thrown out on standing orders. The application was renewed in 1826, with no better result, the local opposition proving too strong for the promoters; and they at length determined to wait the issue of the Liverpool and Manchester project. In 1830 the surveys of a new line, in two divisions, were made by Mr. Locke and Mr. Rastrick, under the direction of Mr. Stephenson; but the bill for the promotion of the northern portion having been rejected, that for the latter portion was withdrawn; and the act authorising the construction of the Grand Junction. Railway was not obtained until the session of 1833. By that time the promoters of railways had acquired the art of "conciliating" the landlords. The process was a very expensive one, but the bill was carried without, parliamentary opposition, and the works were immediately proceeded with. * Report on the Liverpool and Birmingham Railway, August, 1824. By George Stephenson. Nopensmanding the letse sucess of the Livernooi ansi Hanchester Tento nites wunst milways and Their airantages Dante tants of these Estricts beng van Ter Tassel or her i pertencei heir 1 sustenta reinetions in the price of I te munde fil ends, and in the heap mo med TK i ter prsns fom place to place. The Liverpen and Lanester Railway was narried as a Danoca wider in te ist: mi strangers resorted to Lancashirem al rares o les heuns and to mate the of te beomotive. Twimess a milway min x me fini-Tent ars was in event in one's life. But ene i distance ti not see milways and railway mveling ʼn he ame is The Arther of and the greater the ignorace vinen prevallei sather mdes of working, the greater, of zurse, was the ppular Larn. The towns of the auth my 5 Lowel he emmpie of Nrthampton when they howie i wn the milways It was proposed to carry a Ine through Kent by the populous county town of Maidstone. But a pubie meening vas held to oppose the project : and the milvay hai ne a single supporter amongst the townspecție. The rulvay, when at length firmed through Kent, passed Maidstone at a fistance: but in a few years the Maidstone burgesses. Eike those of Northampton, became clamorous for a railway, and a branch was formed for their accommodation. Again, in a few years, they complained that the route was circuitous, as they had compelled it to be: consequently another and shorter line was formed to bring Maidstone into more direct communication with the metropolis. In like manner the London and Bristol (afterwards the Great Western) Railway was vehemently opposed by the people of the towns through which the line was projected to pass; and when the bill was thrown out by the Lords,—after - 30,000l. had been expended by the promoters, the inhabitants of Eton assembled under the presidency of the Marquis of Chandos, to rejoice and congratulate themselves and the country on the defeat of the measure. * When Colonel Sibthorpe openly declared his hatred of "those infernal railroads," he only expressed in a strong manner the feeling which then pervaded the country gentry and many of the middle classes in the southern districts. That respectable nobleman, the late Earl of Harewood, when it was urged by the gentlemen who waited upon him on behalf of the Liverpool and Manchester company, that great advantages to trade and commerce were to be anticipated from the facilities which would be afforded by railways, would not admit the force of the argument, as he doubted whether any new impetus to manufactures would be advantageous to the country. And Mr. H. Berkeley, the intelligent member for Cheltenham, in like manner, strongly expressed the views of his class, when, at a public meeting held in that town, he declared his utter detestation of railways, and wished that the concoctors of every such scheme, with their solicitors and engineers, were at rest in Paradise! "Nothing," said he, "is more distasteful to me than to hear the echo of our hills reverberating with the noise of hissing railroad engines running through the heart of our hunting country, and destroying that noble sport to which I have been accustomed from my childhood." Colonel Sibthorpe even went so far as to declare that he "would rather meet a highwayman, or see a burglar on his premises, than an engineer; he should be much more. safe, and of the two classes he thought the former more respectable!" Railways had thus, like most other great social improvements, to force their way against the fierce antagonism of * Mr. Booth's Account of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, p. 86. united ignorance and prejudice. Public-spirited obstructives were ready to choke the invention at its birth, on the ground of the general good. The forcible invasion of property-the intrusion of public roads into private domains — the noise and nuisance caused by locomotives, and the danger of fire to the adjoining property, were dwelt upon ad nauseam. The lawlessness of navvies was a source of great terror to quiet villages. Then the breed of horses would be destroyed; country innkeepers would be ruined; posting towns would become depopulated; the turnpike roads would be deserted; and the institution of the English Stage-coach, with its rosy gilled coachman and guard, known to every buxom landlady at roadside country inns, would be destroyed for ever. Fox-covers and game-preserves would be interfered with; agricultural communication destroyed; land thrown out of cultivation; landowners and farmers alike reduced to beggary; the poor rates increased in consequence of the numbers of labourers thrown out of employment by the railways; and all this in order that Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham manufacturers, merchants, and cotton-spinners, might establish a monstrous monopoly in railroads! However, there was always this consolation to wind up with, -that the canals would beat the railroads, and that, even * In 1834, a Mr. Cort published a work, entitled, “Railroad Imposition detected," which made some noise at the time, and was highly praised in some of the leading periodicals, in which he demonstrated that the London and Birmingham Railway would be beaten by the canals, and that the speculation would only end in the ruin of its insane projectors. "Long," said he, “before the Birmingham line is ready, such are the improvements now making in canals, that not only may the charge he expected to be many times less than the railway, but the time now lost will be considerably saved; and, as a proof of the impotency of the Manchester and Liverpool to compete with water lines, it has not been able to obtain, at the end of three years, three months, and a haif, much above one-sixth of the whole traffic; nor even that, without a total failure as to profit. But granting the Birmingham secured even one-half instead of a sixth, the income, estimated at 92,820l, would be reduced to |