TIME'S CHANGES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 71, 6 January 1936, Page 8

TIME'S CHANGES.

THE PRINCE ON RAILWAYS. The Prince of Wales, who was the guest of honour at the Great Western Railway centenary banquet in London a few weeks ago, dwelt on tho powerful forces opposed to the early development of the railway. "We have travelled a long way since the audacious design of an iron road from London to Bristol was embodied in an Act of Parliament," said his Royal Highness. "What changes have swept across the life and thought of mankind since those bygone days. The railway train, with its smoke and rattle, with its almost incredible speed, seemed a monster roaring through the countryside on whose back one might indeed ride with peril, but only at the cost of old-world life as our ancestors had known it a.nd lover it for centuries. Most powerful forces opposed this absolutely new departure. . . Such were the resistances of the old world to what was no doubt the prime agent in creating the new. But the steam horse ploughed his way through them all, and nothing could stop the march of human destiny. To-night we meet in a terrimc world where the size oi everything grows larger and larger, and the pace of everything giwvs faster and faster, and when we are whirled «along to greater triumphs or greater disasters than any that have gone before our time. It is important to notico in what way the harnessing of Steam, and all that follows from it. have benefited the world and our own country in particular. .When the pioneers of the Great Western Railway were building the track to Bristol, in the words of Disraeli: 'ln those days England was for the few, and for the very few'.' Now we have made it a land for the many, and we dream and contrive for the days when it shall be a land for all."