stitute was
struggling under a debt of 6200 pounds which seriously impaired its
usefulness as an educational agency. Robert Stephenson offered to pay
one-half of the sum, provided the local supporters of the Institute would
raise the remainder; and conditional also on the annual subscription
being reduced from two guineas to one, in order that the usefulness of
the institution might be extended. The generous offer was accepted, and
the debt extinguished.

Both father and son were offered knighthood, and both declined it.
During the summer of 1847, George Stephenson was invited to offer himself
as a candidate for the representation of South Shields in Parliament.
But his politics were at best of a very undefined sort; indeed his life
had been so much occupied with subjects of a practical character, that he
had scarcely troubled himself to form any decided opinion on the party
political topics of the day, and to stand the cross fire of the electors
on the hustings might have been found an even more distressing ordeal
than the cross-questioning of the barristers in the Committees of the
House of Commons. "Politics," he used to say, "are all matters of
theory--there is no stability in them: they shift about like the sands of
the sea: and I should feel quite out of my element amongst them." He had
accordingly the good sense respectfully to decline the honour of
contesting the representation of South Shields.

We have, however, been informed by Sir Joseph Paxton, that although
George Stephenson held no strong opinions on political questions
generally, there was one question on which he entertained a decided
conviction, and that was the question of Free-trade. The words used by
him on one occasion to Sir Joseph were very strong. "England," said he,
"is, and must be a shopkeeper; and our docks and harbours are only so
many wholesale shops, the doors of which should 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 Navigation Laws and
opposing Free Trade.

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 the ra