The Liverpool and Manchester Bill, however, got into Parliament, and went before a Committee of the House of Commons to decide upon it, in March 1825.
First, its friends had to show the necessity of some new mode of travel between the two cities; and that it was not difficult to do.
But when it came to asking for liberty to build a railway and run a locomotive, the matter was more difficult to manage. And to face the tremendous opposition rallied against it, the pluck of its friends was severely tried.
The battle had to be fought inch by inch.
Stephenson, of course, was the chief witness for locomotives. But what headway could he, an uneducated Northumbrian mechanic, make against members of Parliament, backed by all the chief engineers of the kingdom? For very few had faith in him; but those few had strong faith. He was examined and cross-examined. They tried to bully him, to puzzle him, to frighten him. On the subject of locomotives his answers were clear. He declared he could drive an engine, and drive it safely, at the rate of twelve miles an hour!
"Who can believe what is so notoriously in the teeth of all experience?" cried the opposition; "the witness is a madman!"
Famous engineers were called on the stand. What had they to say? One declared the scheme a most wild one. He had no confidence in locomotives. They were affected by wind and weather; with difficulty were kept on the track, and were liable to constant accidents; indeed, a gale of wind would render it impossible to start a locomotive, either by poking the fire or keeping up the steam till the boiler should burst: they could never be relied on.
The proposed route had to cross an ugly quagmire, several miles in extent, called Chat Moss, a very shaky piece of land, no doubt; and here the opposition took a strong stand. "No engineer in his senses," cried one, "would think of going through Chat Moss. No carriage could stand on the Moss short of the bottom."
"It is absurd to hold out the notion that locomotives can travel twice as fast as stage-coaches," said another; "one might as soon trust himself to a rocket as to the mercy of a machine going at that rate."
"Carriages cannot go at anything like that speed," added another; "if driven to it, the wheels would only spin on their axles like a top, and the carriages would stand stock-still!"