With the Stockton and Darlington Railway an assured and successful fact, the men who had been interested in building a line between Liverpool and Manchester earlier took up the subject again. Some improvement in the means of communication between the two cities was more needed than ever. The three canals and the turnpike road were often so crowded that traffic was held up for days and even weeks. In addition the canal charges were excessive. On the other hand the railway builders had to meet the opposition of the powerful canal companies and landowners along the line they wished to open, and it took time and ingenuity to accomplish working adjustments. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway bill came up for consideration in the House of Commons early in 1825. A determined stand was made against it, and the promoters and their engineers, chief among whom was Stephenson, had to be very modest in their claims. Stephenson had said to friends that he was confident that locomotives could be built that would carry a train of cars at the rate of twenty miles an hour, but such a claim would have been received by the public as ridiculous, and the engineer laughed to scorn. His opponents tried to badger him in every way they could, and ridicule even his modest statements. “Suppose now,” said one of the members of Parliament in questioning him, “one of these engines to be going along a railroad at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the engine; would not that be a very awkward circumstance?” “Yes,” answered Stephenson, with a twinkling eye, “very awkward--_for the coo_!” In fact very few of the members understood Stephenson’s invention at all. A distinguished barrister represented about the general level of ignorance when he said in a speech, “Any gale of wind which would affect the traffic on the Mersey would render it _impossible_ to set off a locomotive engine, either by poking the fire, or keeping up the pressure of the steam till the boiler was ready to burst.” Against such opposition it was not surprising that the bill failed of passage that year.