380 STEPHENSON AND PEEL. CHAP. XVII. 



of Parliament," said he, " are now as much disposed to 

 exaggerate the powers of the locomotive, as they were 

 to under-estimate them but a few years ago." Robert 

 accordingly wrote a letter for his Tether's signature, 

 embodying the views which he so strongly enter- 

 tained as to the importance of flat gradients, and 

 referring to the experiments conducted by him many 

 years before, in proof of the great loss of working power 

 which was incurred on a line of steep as compared with 

 easy gradients. It was clear, from the tone of Sir 

 Robert Peel's speech in a subsequent debate, that he 

 had carefully read and considered Mr. Stephenson's 

 practical observations^ onxthe subject ; though it did not 

 appear that he had come to any definite conclusion 

 thereon, further than that he strongly approved of the 

 Trent Yalley Railway, by which Tamworth would be 

 placed upon a direct main line of communication. 



The result of the labours of Parliament was a tissue 

 of legislative bungling, involving enormous loss to the 

 public. Railway Bills were granted in heaps. Two 

 hundred and seventy-two additional Acts were passed in 

 1846. Some authorised the construction of lines running 

 almost parallel to existing railways, in order to afford 

 the public "the benefits of unrestricted competition." 

 Locomotive and atmospheric lines, broad-gauge and 

 narrow-gauge lines, were granted without hesitation. 

 Committees decided without judgment and without 

 discrimination ; it was a scramble for Bills, in which 

 the most unscrupulous were the most successful. As an 

 illustration of the legislative folly of the period, Mr. 

 Robert Stephenson, speaking at Toronto, in Upper 

 Canada, some years later, adduced the following in- 

 stances : " There was one district through which it 

 was proposed to run two lines, and there was no other 

 difficulty between them than the simple rivalry that, if 

 one got a charter, the other might also. But here, 

 where the Committee might have given both, they gave 



