368 THE COMMERCIAL ELEMENT IN RAILWAYS. CHAP. XVII. 



it to overcome. On one occasion, when Robert Ste- 

 phenson stated before a Parliamentary Committee that 

 every successive improvement in the locomotive was 

 being rendered virtually nugatory by the difficult and 

 almost impracticable gradients proposed on many of the 

 new lines, his father, on his leaving the witness-box, 

 went up to him, and said, " Robert, you never spoke 

 truer words than those in all your life." 



To this it must be added, that in urging these views 

 Mr. Stephenson was strongly influenced by commer- 

 cial considerations. He had no desire to build up his 

 reputation at the expense of railway shareholders, 

 nor to obtain engineering eclat by making " ducks 

 and drakes " of their money. He was persuaded that, 

 in order to secure the practical success of railways, they 

 must be so laid out as not only to prove of decided 

 public utility, but also to be worked economically and 

 to the advantage of their proprietors. They were not 

 government roads, but private ventures in fact, com- 

 lercial speculations. He therefore endeavoured to 

 tender them financially profitable ; and he repeatedly 

 leclared that if he did not believe they could be " made 

 pay," he would have nothing to do with them. 1 He 

 was not influenced by the sordid consideration of what 

 he could make out of any company that employed 

 him ; indeed, in many cases he voluntarily gave up his 

 claim to remuneration where the promoters of schemes 

 which he thought praiseworthy had suffered serious loss. 



1 He frequently refused to act as 

 the engineer for lines which he thought 

 would not prove remunerative, or 

 when he considered the estimates too 

 low. Thus, when giving evidence on 

 the Great Western Bill, Mr. Stephen- 

 son said, " I made out an estimate for 

 the Hartlepool Railway, which they 

 returned on account of its being too 

 high, but I declined going to Parlia- 



ment with a lower estimate." An- 

 other engineer was employed. Then, 

 again, " I was consulted about a line 

 from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The 

 directors chalked out a line and sent it 

 to me, and I told them I could not 

 support it in that case." Hence the 

 employment of another engineer to 

 carry out the line which Mr. Stephen- 

 son could not conscientiously advocate. 



