22
23
286
with him on this subject. He
told me that he was
himself-
strongly in favour of the extension of railways throughout the Empire, but that he was m - persistently opposed by the two - most influential classes, vir. the provincial gentry and the literati. I encouraged the Viceroy by remarking that, fifty years ago, . the great majority of the country gentry of England.
were
opposed to the extension of railways, while the two chief bodies of our literate,
the
the old Universities, addressed petitions to Parliament against...
railways being
ever allowed tom approach Oxford and Cambridge? I added that prejudices of this _ Kind had now been swept away in England, and that I hoped. that they would also be swept away. in China.
11.
X
One of the most
remarkable
It will be remembered that the University of Oxford succeeded in preventing the main line of the Great Western Railway coming nearer to Oxford than Didcot; and that some years elapsed before the construction of a branch rai
city.
railway to that