A Protest against the Extension of Railways in the Lake District/Article from the Saturday Review
RAILWAYS AND SCENERY.
Reprinted, by permission, from the 'Saturday Review' of
22nd January, 1876.
Whether a Bill for making a railway from Windermere to Ambleside, and thence through Rydal and Grasmere to Keswick, is or is not introduced in the coming Session, there is little doubt that some such application will be made in the course of a year or two. As regards scenery, it seems almost beyond the power of Railway Companies or hotel-keepers to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs for them. No matter how completely the characteristic qualities of a beautiful district may be destroyed, greater facilities of approach bring crowds of undiscerning travellers whose custom more than repays the loss of those who no longer care to look at a landscape which has been vulgarized past endurance. The change is not merely insufficient to outweigh in the minds of the new arrivals the fact that they can reach the scene of their holiday in a shorter time and with less inconvenience; it has for them positive attractions of its own. Monster hotels, with a table-d' hôte for every meal, and the opportunity of seeing everything in the society of a congenial crowd, are not drawbacks to be got over in consideration of counterbalancing advantages; they are, in themselves additional recommendations. Cheerfulness takes the place of seclusion; and the heart of the tourist leaps within him as he recognizes the signs which tell him he is not far from his kind. Even if there were no other reason for proposing to carry the railway beyond Windermere, the anxiety of innkeepers whom the successes of their better-placed rivals will not suffer to sleep would probably supply sufficient promoters. Besides this, there may be fresh mines discovered in the mountains on either side of the valley, so that the new line might hope to secure industrial as well as passenger traffic. With these possibilities in prospect, it is useless to put aside the question as one which is not likely to become practical. The application for a new railway through the very heart of the Lake Country will be made, and it will be well if Parliament has had time to consider what answer shall be given to it.
There was a time when consent would have been almost a foregone conclusion. Until the financial collapse of so many lines had proved that, even as regards the means of locomotion, the supply may sometimes exceed the demand, those who preached that the construction of railroads is not an end in itself had no chance of gaining a hearing. For the moment the world and all that is therein belonged to the engineer and the contractor, and any one who dreamed of setting bounds to their efforts was set down as a reactionary dreamer. Financial embarrassments have at length given the objector a chance of being listened to. Amidst the disgust which accompanies bad investments, the position that a given district is not of necessity the happier for the possession of a railroad no longer seems a patent absurdity. It must be admitted, indeed, that the prima facie argument is always on the side of railways. The villagers of the district, through which it is proposed to carry one, will dispose of their produce to greater advantage, by reason both of the increased facilities for sending it to market, and of the increase in the number of those who will consume it on the spot. If, in addition to this new kinds of industry are developed, and mines or factories spring up on the mountain-side or along the course of the streams, still larger commercial gains may be gathered in. Are there any considerations of sufficient force to outweigh these?
In answer to this there are two things to be said. In the first place, the welfare of the particular district concerned is not the only point to be kept in view. It might conceivably be highly convenient to the inhabitants of Queen's Gate and Lancaster Gate to have a railway carried across the centre of Kensington Gardens. Mutual visits would be promoted, especially in bad weather, and a healthy competition might be created between the tradesmen in the two neighbourhoods. But no amount of local unanimity would avail anything against the general determination to retain Kensington Gardens for the benefit, not only of the bordering districts, but of the whole of London.
If there is any part of Great Britain which can be said to be held in trust for the whole nation, it is the Lakes. It is the most generally accessible of the mountain districts, and notwithstanding all that has been done round Coniston and Ullswater, it is still the most unspoiled. What even mountain districts can become under certain combinations of industry and locomotion, may be seen in parts of Yorkshire: and if the ascent of Helvellyn or Fairfield had to be begun amidst the smoke of chimneys, the roar of furnaces, and the shrieks of railway engines, the special charm of the Lake scenery would be gone. Much, no doubt, that is striking and beautiful would remain, for it would be long before even the most sanguine speculator would be tempted to reproduce the Rigi railroad on a smaller scale; but the seclusion and freshness of the valleys would be destroyed, and the enjoyment even of the mountains would be half neutralized by the annoyances clustered at their feet.
We will not go the length of saying that there is no conceivable gain to the inhabitants of Rydal and Grasmere, which would constitute a sufficient reason for depriving Englishmen of this means of escape from the irritating surroundings of town life, and especially of town life as it exists in the manufacturing districts, but the case made out ought to be one of very unusual strength. As a matter of fact, there is no ground to suppose that any case at all can be made out. The conversion of mountain valleys into theatres of mining or manufacturing industry may be a benefit to the country generally or to mankind, but it is a benefit which is usually conferred at the sacrifice of some of the comfort of the inhabitants.
The question is not, therefore, whether the interests of the people of the Lake country are to be subordinated to the interests of those who visit it in their holidays. It is whether the interests of those who wish to make money out of the Lake country ought to be treated as paramount over those of other classes. There are circumstances, no doubt, which might make it necessary to carry on the railway from Windermere; but these circumstances should be strictly investigated and severely judged. The creation of another valley bristling with chimneys and machinery would be but a poor compensation for the loss of one of the few districts left in England in which really grand scenery is still uninjured by man. Of the first kind of spectacle, Yorkshire and South Wales have examples enough to offer. Of the last the number is now too small to make the destruction of any one of them a light matter.
It is not merely the substitution of one mode of locomotion for another that is involved in the extension of railways in the Lakes. If nothing but the conveyance of passengers were concerned, it might be possible so to construct the line as to prevent it from greatly disfiguring the country through which it passed. Much of the injury which has been inflicted in this way has been due, not to the fact that a railway has been made, so much as to the fact that it has been made in a particular way. A little deviation from the course actually taken, a little additional outlay in making a viaduct or embankment less conspicuous, or a bridge less ungraceful, even the simple expedient of planting an ugly wall with creepers, or hiding it with fast-growing trees, would often have made an immense difference. There has been great and culpable carelessness in this respect on the part of those who have had the power to say whether a railway shall be made or not. It ought long ago to have been made the duty of some department of the Government to see that, wherever the Legislature is asked to confer additional powers of taking land, no needless injury shall be done to the scenery of the district through which the Company applying for these powers, proposes to carry their line. Even in the absence of such a department, a Parliamentary Committee might insist on exacting proper security against the needless disfigurement of so exceptional a district as the Lakes.
But in this case the railway is only a small part of the danger to be feared. The landowners in the interior of the Lake country are but human. They have their expenses, their embarrassments, their natural desires to increase their income or to lay up capital for their families; and if a railway is brought to their doors, it is certain that some of them will be induced to test the contents of the ground they own, in the hope that it may prove as rich in mineral wealth as the ground on the outskirts of the district has already proved. If it is urged that when this time arrives it will be soon enough to inquire how the destruction, so far as natural beauty is concerned, of a district in which, though it be not national property, the nation has a certain intelligible interest, can be prevented, it is enough to say that it will then be too late. Parliament must have greatly changed its nature before it interferes to hinder a landlord from doing what he will with his own land. If a man has a railway at his door there is no force, at least none that is likely to be brought into play, strong enough to prevent him from opening a mine in his field. Indeed, as the law stands now, there is no force strong enough to prevent him so polluting the stream that flows through his land that it becomes loathsome alike to sight and taste. These things he can do without asking Parliament to help him, and with a reasonable certainty that Parliament even if asked, will do nothing to hinder him. But so long as there is no railroad nearer than Windermere, Rydal Water is not likely to be invaded by either mines or mills, and as a railway cannot be made without the aid of Parliament, it is at this point that obstructives can most conveniently take their stand.
We have guarded ourselves against being supposed to say that no more railways ought to be made in the Lake country. It is enough for our purpose if it is conceded that no more ought to be made without careful inquiry, without full consideration of the weighty arguments against their extension in this particular district, and without a preliminary recognition that a very much more imperative case ought to be made out for their construction in this particular district than in almost any other. So far as is yet known, no advantage that we do not already possess can be secured by prolonging the railway beyond Windermere; whereas it is evident that against any gain that may be realized by prolongation must be set certainly the partial, and possibly the entire, destruction of scenes of natural beauty, and, by comparison, of unbroken solitude, which can never be reproduced. In the present condition of England this argument ought to have a strong influence on the Legislature which has to decide the question.