But Lord Palmerston is very far from being a monopolist of this discredit. Robert Stephenson was at this time one of the leading English engineers. As the great son of a great father, he enjoyed vast influence, honourably and justly acquired, and employed, with one exception, discriminatingly and in a manner worthy of its possessor. That exception was the position which he took up in reference to the Suez Canal. Appointed to represent England on a commission of experts instructed to report on the question of isthmian transit, Stephenson satisfied himself that the idea of a canal was impracticable, and reported against it. So far, Stephenson was quite alone. His two colleagues on the commission—M. Talabot, representing France, and M. Negrelli, representing Austria—were both in favour of the canal in preference to the railroad which Stephenson recommended.[157] His brother engineers in England appear to have stood loyally by Stephenson. They gave very little countenance to M. de Lesseps or his scheme. Both were, indeed, denounced from platform and press in the most unsparing manner. The leading daily journals, which write in haste, and the sober, scholarly quarterlies, which are supposed to write at leisure and after much reflection, were alike opposed to it. The _Edinburgh Review_ spoke of it as “utterly impracticable,” and urged that, “the available population or resources of Egypt could not execute such a work in a hundred years;” that “an army of foreign navvies would be required to keep in repair such a work, with its locks, viaducts, steam engines, and a floating capital hardly inferior to the original outlay”; that “a vessel in Aden harbour would rather take 3_l._ per ton for England, if allowed to go _viâ_ the Cape, than she would take 5_l._ if forced to go through the canal”; that if the principles on which the _Great Eastern_, was then being built, were sound,[158] there was “an end, not only of the canal, but the Red Sea may again be restored to its pristine solitude, undisturbed even by the weekly visit of the passing steamers”; and, finally, that until different experiences were at command, “the Suez Canal may fairly be relegated among the _questions diseuses_ which may interest and amuse, but can hardly ever benefit mankind.”[159]