248 History of Inland Transport 



these predictions of national disaster) the locomotive, after 

 all, would never be got to work because, although its wheels 

 might turn, it would remain on the lines by reason of its own 

 weight a theory which, long pondered over by men of 

 science, led to early projects of " general " railways being 

 based on the rack-and-pinion principle of operation, and was 

 only abandoned when someone had the happy idea of making 

 experiments which proved that the surmise in question was a 

 complete delusion. 



I reproduce these puerilities of the early part of the nine- 

 teenth century, not simply for the entertainment of the reader, 

 but because it is a matter of serious consideration how far 

 they affected the cost of providing the country with rail- 

 waysi and whether, indeed, the traders who smile at them 

 to-day may not still be paying, in one way or another, for 

 the consequences they involved. 



The keener the prejudice, the greater the hostility and the 

 more bitter the denunciations when railways were struggling 

 into existence, the more vigorous became the antagonism 

 of landowners, the higher were the prices demanded for land, 

 the more costly, by reason of the opposition, were the pro- 

 ceedings before Parliamentary Committees, and the heavier 

 grew that capital expenditure the interest on which would have 

 to be met out of such rates and charges as the railways, when 

 made, would impose. 



To a certain extent one may sympathise with landowners 

 who feared that the amenities of their estates might be pre- 

 judiced by an innovation of which so much evil was being 

 said ; but, as a rule (to which there were some very honour- 

 able exceptions) it was found that their scruples in regard 

 alike to their own interests and to the national welfare even- 

 tually resolved themselves into a question of how much money 

 could be got out of the companies. Thus the extortionate 

 prices paid for land often had no relation to the actual value 

 of the land itself. They were simply the highest amount 

 the railway company were prepared to pay the landowner 

 for the withdrawal of his threatened opposition. If the 

 company resisted the exorbitant demands made upon them, 

 and would not give a sufficiently high bribe, they were so 

 strongly opposed that they generally lost their Bill when they 

 first applied for it to Parliament. Thereupon they would 



