CHAP. XXI. ROBERT AS MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT. 481 



always be kept wide open." It is curious that his son 

 Robert should have taken precisely the opposite view of 

 this question, and acted throughout with the most rigid 

 party amongst the protectionists, supporting the Navi- 

 gation Laws and opposing Free Trade, even to the 

 extent of going into the lobby on the 26th November, 

 1852, with the famous " cannon-balls." x 



But Robert Stephenson will be judged in after times 

 by his achievements as an engineer, rather than by his 

 acts as a politician ; and happily these last were far 

 outweighed in value by the immense practical services 

 which he rendered to trade, commerce, and civilisation, 

 through the facilities which his railways afforded for free 

 intercommunication between men in all parts of the 

 world. Speaking in the midst of his friends at New- 

 castle, in 1850, he observed : 



" It seems to me but as yesterday that I was engaged 

 as an assistant in laying out the Stockton and Darlington 

 Railway. Since then, the Liverpool and Manchester 

 and a hundred other great works have sprung into 

 existence. As I look back upon these stupendous 

 undertakings, accomplished in so short a time, it seems 

 as though we had realised in our generation the fabled 

 powers of the magician's wand. Hills have been cut 

 down and valleys filled up ; and when these simple 

 expedients have not sufficed, high and magnificent 

 viaducts have been raised, and, if mountains stood in 

 the way, tunnels of unexampled magnitude have pierced 

 them through, bearing their triumphant attestation to 

 the indomitable energy of the nation, and the unrivalled 

 skill of our artisans." 



1 For the origin of this term see the it. The Noes included Robert Stephen- 



' Times ' leader of November 29th, ', son, Colonel Sibthorp, Mr. Spooner, 



1852. The division took pkce on j &c. Mr. JStephenson felt very strongly 



Lord Palmerston's motion as to the ! the " betrayal of the protectionist party" 



results of the Free-trade policy adopted 

 by Sir Robert Peel in- 1846, on which 

 there appeared 486 for, and 53 against 



by their Parliamentary leader ; and he 

 even went so far as to say that he 

 " could never forgive Peel." 



VOL. III. 2 I 



