A Protest against the Extension of Railways in the Lake District/Protest and Letter
PROTEST AND LETTER.
The following short Protest and Letter, with the connecting paragraphs, a small Map of the district, and form of Petition to Parliament, are issued as a separate paper for gratuitous circulation, and for signature. All who love the Lake Country may thus help in the work. Copies of this paper may be had, gratis, from R. Somervell, Hazelthwaite, Windermere; to whom forms of petition when filled should be forwarded.
It cannot be denied that for some years the rapid extension of various industries has been doing much to change the face of our Country. What with Railways, Coals, Iron, and Chemicals, great tracts of country have been rendered frightful; while the general multiplication of smoking erections of all sorts has blackened earth and sky over still larger areas. It is evident that unless we are prepared to turn the country into a smoke-darkened shop some check must, sooner or later, be put upon this process. And as the threatened further encroachment of a railway upon one of the loveliest districts in England menaces it with the beginning of such destruction, it is needful that all who know the value of fine natural scenery, and feel the importance of preserving it, should make some resistive effort.
It is not merely the substitution of one kind of road and one kind of tractive power for another that is to be dreaded,— but the change which such substitution always brings with it, and the precedent it furnishes for further and more disastrous innovation.
A glance at the accompanying map will shew that the Lake District is entirely surrounded by railway, and approachable on all sides. The London and North Western Company has access at Kendal, Windermere, Shap, Penrith, (for Pooley Bridge), Troutbeck, (for Ullswater), and Keswick; and the Furness Company, (in connection with the Midland) at Grange, the foot of Windermere (Lake Side), Broughton, Coniston, and Seascale, (for Wastwater and Ennerdale). So far as the public is concerned what more could be wished? In the very heart of the district the traveller is within three or four hours' drive of a railway station.
This notwithstanding, it is notorious that for some time past the rival companies have been casting longing eyes upon Ambleside, as a point desirable of attainment in itself, and possibly a convenient base for further enterprise in the direction of Grasmere or even Keswick.
Is such an extension by either Company desirable or permissible?
There are, perhaps, few Englishmen who would scruple, at the call of their favourite tutelary, to blast the loveliness of their mother country when it takes the modest form of cornfield and hedgerow; but surely it concerns us all to keep a few chosen places lovely and clean, if only for holiday time.
It is asserted that the mineral wealth of the district would be wonderfully developed by a line of railway. Probably there are persons living who would undertake to turn the country of Wordsworth into a Black Country, for a percentage on the transaction. But are we willing to give them the chance? Open up the district with a railway give full scope to commercial enterprise—and we may find ourselves unable to hinder them.
Englishmen who fancy it might be for the public good to have a progressive Lake District, should spend their next holiday in the Black Country, or take a run down, via Furness Abbey, to Barrow and its neigbourhood, and try how they like the change from Grasmere.
Surely now, if ever, a firm stand must be made, and the opinion of all wise and gentle persons stoutly expressed.
The Petition, of which a draft is annexed, is intended for presentation to Parliament should any Bill be introduced proposing to extend any line of railway into the district; and all visitors who have the smallest care for its preservation are earnestly asked, not only to sign their own names, but to induce their friends in other parts of the country to do so. There are many who would gladly sign, whose names might be obtained in this way; and it is only by the hearty cooperation of all that the work can be efficiently done.
(For Form of Petition see Page 60.)
I have ventured, reluctantly, to reprint the following Letter, in no desire to perpetuate a controversy, but because it states plainly one or two things which are only hinted at in the foregoing Protest.
I do so in the hope that it may be found useful by those who are endeavouring to rouse in the public mind some sense of the utter folly of permitting all the lovely places in our country to be destroyed, one after another, by the advancing tide of what we are pleased to flatter ourselves by calling 'Progress.' Surely we must be blind to the real meaning of the word, or else to the nature of the realities which we use it to denominate, if we suppose that the change from the peaceful life of the country to the feverish stir of our filthy towns, and the endless mechanical drudgery of our degenerate and degrading manufactures, is truly progressive. While, therefore, we urge the importance of preserving the Lake District more particularly on the ground of its especial beauty, and national value as a recreation ground, let ns not lose sight of the other and larger question—How far, even in less favoured regions, the rapid growth of large towns and the peculiar developments of modem trade can be approved as conducing to the formation of noble character, and to the 'Progress,' physical, moral, and spiritual, of the people.
The attempt to call attention to the threatened destruction of the Lake District, before it is too late, is already meeting with the approval and support of persons in all parts of the country. But the Public has been long accustomed, either to look upon every railway as an unmistakeable boon, or at best, to content itself, when any unusual sacrilege has been done, with a half-ejaculated 'Shame!' so that the work of arousing it to its duty is an arduous one. There are numbers of persons who are with us in principle and in sympathy, who are as yet only lukewarm. And these must be interested and roused if possible, and led to see that this is no selfish effort to save a few fields from being turned into cinder ground, but an honest endeavour to vindicate important but forgotten principles.
But we have not only to deal with objectors, but to meet opponents. Of these, some, it is true, are blinded only by selfishness or ignorance; but there are others who would openly trample underfoot all precious things to obtain one precious metal; and it is to contend with these that it behoves us earnestly to strengthen our forces.
To this deliberate service of Mammon, more than to any other cause, we owe the degradation of the arts of life, by division of labour and machinery, to merely mechanical toil; and their degeneracy,—for our vast machine power has been used not to supply our needs more easily and completely, but to encourage an extravagant and wasteful consumption of rubbish; with this pleasing result at the close of half a century of Progress,—that we can hardly obtain one of the manufactured products of our country of the sterling quality that our grandfathers could.
It is not likely that argument will shake the purpose, or contempt stay the hand of men whose prime principle is to make money. It simply remains for us now to determine whether they possess a majority in the councils of the nation, or whether, as one would hope, there be not yet strength of heart and purpose enough among the wise and gentle to say with authority to this restless herd—'thus far shall ye come and no farther.'
TO THE EDITOR OF 'THE WESTMORLAND JOURNAL.'
I have to thank you for your courteous insertion and notice of my protest and petition against the construction of new railways in the Lake District: and you are so far favourable to my views, that, with your permission, I will state what I have to say in answer to your objections.
Your article divides itself into two parts;—criticism of position, and definition of your own. Critically you demolish me before a select committee of the House of Commons; and afterwards you give me some good-natured advice.
The argument which you put into the mouth of an 'acute Parliamentary barrister' is as follows:
(a) I accept your statements about the defilement of many parts of the country;
(b) that the Lake District is used by many as a place for health-getting and recreation is a fact, and I do not deny it;
(c) but the inhabitants of the smoke-darkened regions are the very people who most need the refreshment of your fine country, and yet, when they come for a day to the lakes, some of the grandest scenery is barred against them, since it can only be visited 'at an expenditure far beyond the reach of any one who does not belong to the affluent classes.'
(d) Hence it is desirable that railways should be pushed on into the heart of the district; Q.E.D.
The weight of the argument rests upon the statement in paragraph c.
Now, sir, I am not going to attempt myself, nor shall I ask you to attempt, to draw the line between the 'affluent' and the unaffluent classes; but the least affluent excursionists have legs; and such being the case, and supposing they are inclined to use them,—if they really love the fine scenery between Ambleside and Keswick, they have time in the nine or ten hours at their disposal to get into the heart of it.
But for those who are unable or unwilling to take a walk of 15 to 20 miles—is it really so,—that the cost of getting among the hills is 'far beyond their reach?' The return fare by steamer between Bowness and Ambleside is one shilling, and the 'bus from Waterhead to Grasmere a shilling or sixpence. I am within the truth in saying that hundreds of these excursionists might, for less money than they spend in paddling or being paddled about Bowness Bay, travel far into the heart of our hill country.
But living, as I do, at Windermere, I have taken some pains to study the bearing and temper of these crowds, and I do not scruple to say that the majority of the persons composing them are bored by our fine scenery, and have small care for anything in which the Lake District excels a suburban tea-garden.
Do not let me be thought to speak rashly. There are some of those who come to us for a day out of Lancashire and Yorkshire, who do love and enjoy the place; and the sight of their quiet, gladdened faces is beautiful and touching to behold. For their sakes, quite as much as for the sake of those whose means permit them to make a longer stay, I plead that the place may be kept as it is.
For observe—and this brings me to the examination of your position ('a railway—but as little of it as possible—and elegant bridges, &c.,')—when you make a railway to a place of perfect natural beauty, when you cast up your embankments and build your bridges, blast out your cuttings and bore your tunnels, erect your stations and sheds, your sidings and signals, and finish with a row of square-set cottages, looking as if they had been baked whole in one ugly mould, and stuck down in a lump, you do not enable a larger number of people to visit the same place; you simply destroy all its characteristics past redemption' and put the old place out of sight of every one for ever.
Lastly—do not suppose that the Railway Companies care very greatly about running cheap trips to Ambleside and Grasmere. Their object in wanting a railway I hinted at pretty plainly in my protest. When it comes to that, elegant bridges will be of little avail. Only to-day I heard something which, with your permission I will quote, as an expression of opinion, though differing widely from your own; 'we are being undersold by foreigners in iron, and if these hills contain iron we must get it, and never mind the scenery. We can't afford to keep fine scenery for a few, &c., &c.' Now if we desire to be nothing but ironmongers, and to live our lives, and die, and be buried amid the sweat and dust, the darkness and flame of our forges—well and good. That is what some people call 'progress.' But if purity of mountain air is good to be enjoyed—if it be yet worth while to cherish the patriotism that springs from affection for a noble country—if we have any purer love than the love of gain, any joy in the works of God, any care for rest, or any thoughts of peace—call these things 'sentiment' if you will, but they are noble sentiment, that is worth preserving; and most surely to be nourished and strengthened by the contemplation of the unsullied grandeur of Nature. We may mar that beauty of Holiness, and despise that power for good if we will; but, believe me, when our work of destruction is done, we shall find that they cannot be bought back with the price of all the iron in the world.
I am, yours truly,
Hazelthwaite, Windermere, July 26th, 1875.
FORM OF PETITION.
To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled.
The humble petition of the undersigned, sheweth, that whereas a tract of country, comprising parts of the Counties of Westmorland, Cumberland, and Lancashire, and commonly known as the Lake District of England, contains some of the most beautiful scenery in Her Majesty's dominions, and has in time past been, and at this present time is, visited by large numbers of Her Majesty's subjects, and by them used as a place of enjoyment, health-getting, and relaxation of mind and body.
And whereas it is expedient to preserve the aforesaid District from the encroachment of all that may tend to destroy its natural beauty, or open the way for such destruction.
And whereas it is proposed in a Bill now before your Honourable House to extend a line of railway from ——— to ———,
Your petitioners therefore pray that your Honourable House will refuse to pass the said Bill, or any Bill proposing to extend any line of railway into the district aforesaid.
And your petitioners will ever pray, &c.
It is possible that upon notice of a Railway Bill being given, it may be deemed desirable to re-collect the signatures, to a definitive Petition. In that event every signatory will be communicated with direct. The present collection of names is the most necessary and important part of the work; as it is desirable that in an emergency every one interested in the matter may be promptly informed. To defer organization until Parliamentary notice is given, would be to court certain defeat.