A Protest against the Extension of Railways in the Lake District

Front matter

A PROTEST

AGAINST THE

EXTENSION OF RAILWAYS

Preface

PREFACE.

The evidence collected in the following pages, in support of their pleading, is so complete; and the summary of his cause given with so temperate mastery by Mr. Somervell, that I find nothing to add in circumstance, and little to reinforce in argument. And I have less heart to the writing even of what brief preface so good work might by its author's courtesy be permitted to receive from me, occupied as I so long have been, in efforts tending in the same direction, because, on that very account, I am far less interested than my friend in this local and limited resistance to the elsewhere fatally victorious current of modern folly, cruelty, and ruin. When the frenzy of avarice is daily drowning our sailors, suffocating our miners, poisoning our children, and blasting the cultivable surface of England into a treeless waste of ashes,—what does it really matter whether a flock of sheep, more or less, be driven from the slopes of Helvellyn, or the little pool of Thirlmere filled with shale, or a few wild blossoms of St. John's vale lost to the coronal of English Spring? Little, to any one; and—let me say this, at least, in the outset of all saying—nothing, to me. No one need charge me with selfishness in any word, or action, for defence of these mossy hills. I do not move, with such small activity as I have yet shown in the business, because I live at Coniston, (where no sound of the iron wheels by Dunmail Raise can reach me,)—nor because I can find no other place to remember Wordsworth by, than the daffodil margin of his little Rydal marsh. What thoughts and work are yet before me, such as he taught, must be independent of any narrow associations. All my own dear mountain grounds, and treasure-cities, Chamouni, Interlachen, Lucerne, Geneva, Venice, are long ago destroyed by the European populace; and now, for my own part, I don't care what more they do; they may drain Loch Katrine, drink Loch Lomond, and blow all Wales and Cumberland into a heap of slate shingle; the world is wide enough yet to find me some refuge during the days appointed for me to stay in it. But it is no less my duty, in the cause of those to whom the sweet landscapes of England are yet precious, and to whom they may yet teach what they taught me, in early boyhood, and would still, if I had it now to learn,—it is my duty to plead with what earnestness I may, that these sacred sibylline books may be redeemed from perishing.

But again, I am checked, because I don't know how to speak to the persons who need to be spoken to in this matter.

Suppose I were sitting, where still, in much changed Oxford, I am happy to find myself, in one of the little latticed cells of the Bodleian Library:—and my kind and much loved friend, Mr. Coxe, were to come to me, with news that it was proposed to send nine hundred excursionists through the library every day, in three parties of three hundred each;—that it was intended they should elevate their minds by reading all the books they could lay hold of while they stayed;—and that practically scientific persons accompanying them were to look out for, and burn, all the manuscripts that had any gold in their illuminations, that the said gold might be made of practical service:—but that he, Mr. Coxe, could not, for his part, sympathize with the movement, and hoped I would write something in deprecation of it! As I should then feel, I feel now, at Mr. Somervell's request that I would write him a preface in defence of Helvellyn. What could I say for Mr. Coxe? Of course, that nine hundred people should see the Library daily, instead of one, is only fair to the nine hundred, and if there is gold in the books, is it not public property? If there is copper or slate in Helvellyn, shall not the public burn or ham it out—and they say they will, of course—in spite of us? What does it signifiy to them how we poor old quiet readers in this mountain library feel? True, we know well enough,—what the nine hundred excursionist scholars don't—that the library can't be read quite through in a quarter of an hour; also, that there is a pleasure in real reading, quite different from that of turning pages; and that gold in a missal, or slate in a crag, may be more precious than in a bank, or a chimney pot. But how are these practical people to credit us,—these, who cannot read, nor ever will; and who have been taught that nothing is virtuous but care for their bellies, and nothing useful but what goes into them?

Whether to be credited or not, the real facts of the matter, made clear as they are in the following pages, can be briefly stated for the consideration of any candid person.

The arguments in favour of the new railway are in the main four, and may be thus answered.

I. 'There are mineral treasures in the district capable of development.'

Answer. It is a wicked fiction, got up by whosoever has got it up, simply to cheat shareholders. Every lead and copper vein in Cumberland has been known for centuries; the copper of Coniston does not pay; and there is none so rich in Helvellyn. And the main central volcanic rocks, through which the track lies, produce neither slate nor hæmatite, while there is enough of them at Llanberis and Dalton to roof and iron grate all England into one vast Bedlam, if it honestly perceives itself in need of that accommodation.

II. 'The scenery must be made accessible to the public.'

Answer. It is more than accessible already;—the public are pitched into it head-foremost, and necessarily miss two-thirds of it. The Lake scenery really begins, on the south, at Lancaster, where the Cumberland hills are seen over Morecambe Bay; on the north, at Carlisle, where the moors of Skiddaw are seen over the rich plains between them and the Solway. No one who loves mountains would lose a step of the approach, from these distances, on either side. But the stupid herds of modern tourists let themselves be emptied, like coals from a sack, at Windermere and Keswick. Having got there, what the new railway has to do is to shovel those who have come to Keswick, to Windermere—and to shovel those who have come to Windermere, to Keswick. And what then?

III. 'But cheap, and swift transit is necessary for the working population, who otherwise could not see the scenery at all.'

Answer. After all your shrieking about what the operatives spend in drink, can't you teach them to save enough out of their year's wages to pay for a chaise and pony for a day, to drive Missis and the Baby that pleasant 20 miles, stopping when they like, to unpack the basket on a mossy bank? If they can't enjoy the scenery that way,—they can't any way; and all that your railroad company can do for them is only to open taverns and skittle grounds round Grasmere, which will soon, then, be nothing but a pool of drainage, with a beach of broken gingerbeer bottles; and their minds will be no more improved by contemplating the scenery of such a lake than of Blackpool.

IV. What else is to be said? I protest I can find nothing, unless that engineers and contractors must live. Let them live; but in a more useful and honourable way than by keeping Old Bartholomew Fair under Helvellyn, and making a steam merry-go-round of the lake country.

There are roads to be mended, where the parish will not mend them, harbours of refuge needed, where our deck-loaded ships are in helpless danger: get your commissions and dividends where you know that work is needed; not where the best you can do is to persuade pleasure-seekers into giddier idleness.

The arguments brought forward by the promoters of the railway may thus be summarily answered: of those urged in the following pamphlet in defence of the country as it is, I care only, myself, to direct the reader's attention to one (see pp. 27, 28.), the certainty, namely, of the deterioration of moral character in the inhabitants of every district penetrated by a railway. Where there is little moral character to be lost, this argument has small weight. But the Border peasantry of Scotland and England, painted with absolute fidelity by Scott and Wordsworth, (for leading types out of this exhaustless portraiture, I may name Dandie Dinmont, and Michael,) are hitherto a scarcely injured race; whose strength and virtue yet survive to represent the body and soul of England, before her days of mechanical decrepitude and commercial dishonour. There are men working in my own fields who might have fought with Henry the Fifth at Agincourt, without being discerned from among his knights; I can take my tradesmen's word for a thousand pounds; my garden gate opens on the latch to the public road, by day and night, without fear of any foot entering but my own, and my girl-guests may wander by road, or moorland, or through every bosky dell of this wild wood, free as the heather bees or squirrels.

What effect, on the character of such a population, will be produced by the influx of that of the suburbs of our manufacturing towns, there is evidence enough if the reader cares to ascertain the facts, in every newspaper on his morning table.

And now, one final word, concerning the proposed beneficial effect on the minds of those whom you send to corrupt us.

I have said I take no selfish interest in this resistance to the railroad—But I do take an unselfish one:—It is precisely because I passionately wish to improve the minds of the populace, and because I am spending my own mind, strength, and fortune, wholly on that object, that I don't want to let them see Helvellyn while they are drunk. I suppose few men now living have so earnestly felt—none certainly have so earnestly declared, that the beauty of Nature is the blessedest and most necessary of lessons for men; and that all other efforts in education are futile, till you have taught your people to love fields, birds, and flowers. Come then, my benevolent friends, join with me in that teaching. I have been at it all my life, and without pride, do solemnly assure you that I know how it is to be managed. I cannot indeed tell you, in this short preface, how, completely, to fulfil so glorious a task. But I can tell you clearly, instantly, and emphatically, in what temper you must set about it. Here are you, a Christian, a gentleman, and a trained scholar;—there is your subject of education—a Godless clown, in helpless ignorance. You can present no more blessed offering to God than that human creature, raised into faith, gentleness, and the knowledge of the works of his Lord. But, observe this—you must not hope to make so noble an offering to God of that which doth cost you nothing! You must be resolved to labour, and to lose, yourself,—before you can rescue this over-laboured lost sheep—and offer it alive to its Master. If then —my benevolent friend, you are prepared to take out your twopence, and to give them to the hosts here in Cumberland, saying—'Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, I will repay thee when I come to Cumberland myself:' on these terms—oh my benevolent friends I am with you, hand and glove, in every effort you wish to make for the enlightenment of poor men's eyes. But if your motive is, on the contrary, to put twopence into your own purse, stolen between the Jerusalem and Jericho of Keswick and Ambleside—out of the poor drunken traveller's pocket;—if your real object, in your charitable offering, is—not even to lend unto the Lord by giving to the poor, but to lend unto the Lord by making a dividend out of the poor;—then, my pious friends, enthusiastic Ananias, pitiful Judas, and sanctified Korah,—I will do my best, in God's name, to stay your hands, and stop your tongues.

JOHN RUSKIN.

Brantwood, 22nd June, 1876.

The State of the Question

RAILWAYS IN THE LAKE DISTRICT.

'Is then no nook of English ground secure From rash assault? Schemes of retirement sown In youth, and mid the busy world kept pure As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown, Must perish;—how can they this blight endure? And must he too the ruthless change bemoan Who scorns a false utilitarian lure Mid his paternal fields at random thrown? Baffle the threat, bright Scene, from Orrest-head Given to the pausing traveller's rapturous glance: Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance Of nature; and, if human hearts be dead, Speak, passing winds; ye torrents with your strong And constant voice, protest against the wrong.'

In these lines Wordsworth gave vent to the feelings of repugnance and regret with which he viewed the proposal, made now more than thirty years ago, to construct a line of railway from Kendal to a spot within a mile of the Head of Windermere. The sonnet was followed, a few weeks later, by two letters from the Poet, which appeared in the 'Morning Post.' These were afterwards revised and published, with some additions, in the form of a pamphlet.

Before the first of these letters was written, the site of the present Windermere Station had been fixed on as the terminus of the railway; and, although Wordsworth continued his opposition to the whole scheme, he wrote not only with a view to the circumstances of his own day, but plainly foreseeing the revival of the attempt to penetrate to the heart of the district, in the future. It is meet then, at a time when such an attempt appears imminent, that we should, in any endeavour to rouse public interest in the fate of the district, begin with some notice of what was thus written in 1844.

Wordsworth felt that he had to deal with three classes of opponents, each in its own way raising the cry of selfishness against him. There was first the herd of speculators and money-makers who sought to bring into discredit all who stood in the way of their gains; second, 'they who are dazzled by the application of physical science to the useful arts, and indiscriminately applaud what they call the spirit of the age as manifested in this way; and, lastly, those persons who are ever ready to step forward in what appears to them to be the cause of the poor, but not always with becoming attention to particulars.' It is to the latter classes that Wordsworth addresses himself.

Showing, first how the taste for what is called picturesque natural scenery is peculiarly a modern one, he insists further on its rarity; and observes that however desirable it may be that every one should possess it, such a taste cannot be implanted at once, but must be gradually developed. Then, after illustrating the assertion that 'the features of nature which go to the composition of such scenery … cannot, in their finer relations to the human mind, be comprehended, or even very imperfectly conceived, without processes of culture or opportunities of observation in some degree habitual;'—he suggests that the dwellers in towns should be prepared, by more frequent intercourse with Nature in her gentle moods of field and wood, to appreciate her more majestic aspects. Finally he ridicules the folly of destroying the charm of the district, on the pretence of bringing people under its influence.

Such, in the main, is the scope of the first letter. In the second the argument is enforced by other considerations. Thus he deprecates the proposal to send people from the humbler ranks of society in large droves to the Lakes, on the ground, not only of their inability to gain any material benefit from the romantic scenery, but also of the want of respect for their independence shewn by such a proceeding. He puts in a plea on behalf of the resident gentry who, having settled in the locality for the sake of retirement, might be driven away by the proposed change; and observes, with much truth, that the poor would suffer by exchanging their old neighbours of the richer sort,—whose constant kindliness and care he eulogizes,— for 'strangers not linked to the neighbourhood, but flitting to and fro between their fancy villas and the homes where their wealth was accumulated and accumulating by trade and manufactures,'

He thus concludes his appeal. 'It will be felt by those who think with me upon this occasion that I have been writing on behalf of a social condition which no one who is competent to judge of it will be willing to subvert, and that I have been endeavouring to support moral sentiments and intellectual pleasures of a high order against an enmity which seems growing more and more every day; I mean "Utilitarianism,"' serving as a mask for cupidity and gambling speculations. My business with this evil lies in its reckless mode of action by Railways, now its favourite instruments. Upon good authority I have been told that there was lately an intention of driving one of these pests, as they are likely too often to prove, through a part of the magnificent ruins of Furness Abbey—an outrage which was prevented by some one pointing out how easily a deviation might be made; and the hint produced its due effect upon the engineer.

'Sacred as that relic of the devotion of our ancestors deserves to be kept, there are temples of Nature, temples built by the Almighty, which have a still higher claim to be left unviolated. Almost every reach of the winding vales in this district might once have presented itself to a man of imagination and feeling under that aspect, or as the Vale of Grasmere appeared to the Poet Gray more than seventy years ago.' "No flaring gentleman's house" says he, "nor garden-walls break in upon the repose of this little unsuspected paradise, but all is peace," &c., &c. Were the Poet now living, how would he have lamented the probable intrusion of a railway with its scarifications, its intersections, its noisy machinery, its smoke, and swarms of pleasure-hunters, most of them thinking that they do not fly fast enough through the country which they have come to see. Even a broad highway may in some places greatly impair the characteristic beauty of the country, as will be readily acknowlodged by those who remember what the Lake of Grasmere was before the new road that runs alonge its eastern margin had been constructed.'

'Quanto prsestantius esset Numen aquae viridi si margine clauderet undas Herba —'

'As it once was, and fringed with wood, instead of the breast work of bare wall that now confines it. In the same manner has the beauty, and still more the sublimity of many Passes in the Alps been injuriously affected. Will the reader excuse a M.S. poem in which I attempted to describe the impression made upon my mind by the descent towards Italy along the Simplon before the new military road had taken place of the old muleteer track with its primitive simplicities?

'Brook and road Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy pass.

And with them we did journey several hours At a slow step. The immeasurable height Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, The stationary blast of waterfalls, And in the narrow rent, at every turn, Winds thwarting winds bewildered and forlorn, The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky. The rocks that muttered close upon our ears, Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side As if a voice were in them, the sick sight And giddy prospect of the raving stream, The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens, Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light, Were all like workings of one mind, the features Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree. Characters of the great Apocalypse, The types and symbols of Eternity, Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.'

1798.

'Thirty years afterwards I crossed the Alps by the same Pass; and what had become of the forms and powers to which I had been indebted for those emotions? Many of them remained, of course, undestroyed and indestructible. But, though the road and torrent continued to run parallel to each other, their fellowship was put an end to. The stream had dwindled into comparative insignificance, so much had Art interfered with and taken the lead of Nature; and although the utility of the new work, as facilitating the intercourse of great nations, was readily acquiesced in, and the workmanship, in some places, could not but excite admiration, it was impossible to suppress regret for what had vanished for ever. The oratories heretofore not unfrequently met with, on a road still somewhat perilous, were gone; the simple and rude bridges swept away; and instead of travellers proceeding, with leisure to observe and feel, were pilgrims of fashion hurried along in their carriages, not a few of them perhaps discussing the merits of "the last new Novel." or poring over their Guide-books, or fast asleep. Similar remarks might be applied to the mountainous country of Wales; but there too, the plea of utility, especially as expediting the communication between England and Ireland, more than justifies the labours of the Engineer. Not so would it be with the Lake District. A railroad is already planned along the sea coast, and another from Lancaster to Carlisle is in great forwardness: an intermediate one is therefore, to say the least of it, superfluous. Once for all let me declare that it is not against Railways but against the abuse of them that I am contending…

'I have now done with the subject. The time of life at which I have arrived may, I trust, if nothing else will, guard me from the imputation of having written from any selfish interests, or from fear of disturbance which a railway might cause to myself. If gratitude for what repose and quiet in a district hitherto, for the most part, not disfigured but beautified by human hands, have done for me through the course of a long life, and hope that others might hereafter be benefited in the same manner and in the same country, be selfishness, then, indeed, but not otherwise, I plead guilty to the charge. Nor have I opposed this undertaking on account of the inhabitants of the district merely, but, as hath been intimated, for the sake of every one, however humble his condition, who coming hither shall bring with him an eye to perceive, and a heart to feel and worthily enjoy. And as for holiday pastimes, if a scene is to be chosen suitable to them for persons thronging from a distance, it may be found elsewhere at less cost of every kind. But, in fact, we have too much hurrying about in these islands; much for idle pleasure, and more from over activity in the pursuit of wealth, without regard to the good or happiness of others.

'Proud were ye, Mountains, when, in times of old, Your patriot sons, to stem invasive war, Intrenched your brows; ye gloried in each scar: Now, for your shame, a Power, the Thirst of Gold, That rules o'er Britain like a baneful star, Wills that your peace, your beauty, shall be sold, And clear way made for her triumphant car Through the beloved retreats your arms enfold! Heard ye that Whistle? As her long-linked Train Swept onwards, did the vision cross your view? Yes, ye were startled;—and, in balance true, Weighing the mischief with the promised gain, Mountains, and Vales, and Floods, I call on you To share the passion of a just disdain.

William Wordsworth.'

Thus Wordsworth thought and wrote thirty years ago. His opinion concerning the appreciative powers of human

nature is not, certainly, so flattering to average humanity as that of the Daily News; but it will, I trust, be sufficiently clear to the reader of the following pages, that the opposition of to-day is based, not on any desire to return to a position of exclusiveness—however logically tenable upon Wordsworth's hypothesis—but on a frank acceptance of the existing state of things, including what, to be quite plain, we may as well call 'cheap trips.'

The changes wrought, during the last thirty years, in our manufacturing centres, have certainly increased, rather than diminished, the difficulty of educating any one to the appreciation of nature in their immediate vicinity. And this alone should make the preservation of the Lake District an object of greater solicitude to the country at large than ever before.

In another respect our position is stronger than Wordsworth's. Not only have the Railways which were planned when he wrote been constructed, but others have been added, bringing travellers up to, or beyond, the edge of the district on every side.

It must be observed that there are two distinct points from which the question of extending a line of railway into the Lake District may be regarded. Either the minerals of the district are worth working, or they are not. Upon this matter I am not disposed to hazard an opinion. But the arguments made use of upon the one supposition, differ from those which are put forward upon the other, by those who favour the railway project; and it may be well to note their divergence, and to indicate some of the considerations which weigh against them.

Upon the supposition that there are no minerals in the district worth working, it is urged that the construction of a railroad, while it would scarcely damage the landscape, would make easy the access to places which must now be reached by a walk or a drive.

It would be idle to attempt to convince a man who can see nothing disfiguring or incongruous in the intrusion, upon a sequestered valley, of a railway with its staring accompaniments, that his opinion results from any lack of fineness in his perceptive powers. But concerning this question of access something may be said. Perfect accessibility, of course, would demand a complete network of lines, with stations at every lovely spot. Nobody, I believe, wants exactly that. It must therefore be a question of degree.

Considering it as such, I venture to say that a little study of present railway facilities will convince any one with a knowledge of the district that, unless we are to legislate solely for the indolent, or for the few who, being too weak to walk, are too poor to ride, no reasonable case for extending the railway can be made out. Even those who can afford but a day at a time may, by a judicious use of their opportunities, and by varying the point of entrance, see a great part of the district.

The imputation of selfishness is always an easy and popular mode of attack, and so it is hardly surprising that the old cry should be raised, that our object is to keep the district 'select,' and to bar the way against the crowds of 'excursionists.' Such charges cannot be too warmly repudiated. For my own part I cannot help thinking that it would add greatly to the comfort and pleasure of the humbler classes of society if our benevolent Railway Companies would grant them special facilities for making cheap excursions at any time, by the regular trains, instead of packing them closely in old rolling-stock, and shortening the time of their enjoyment by an irregular and often tediously prolonged journey. But upon the present system—indeed, perhaps, upon any system, on public holidays—crowds are inevitable; and we bid them very heartily 'Welcome.' As has been said elsewhere, 'It is not to guard that district in the interest of a small section of society, but to preserve it for those—and they are found in every rank—who can enjoy its unsullied natural loveliness, that this movement has been set on foot.'

There are no doubt places which a pedestrian, starting from the railway station, can scarcely visit in a day of nine or ten hours. But, of the persons who have only such intervals at their disposal, those who could best appreciate these inaccessible spots would be the last to desire that the grand solitude or peaceful beauty of the places they can reach should be abolished to make attainable those which they cannot.

We have no right to charge it scornfully upon our working classes that the number of such appreciative persons is small. The blame must rest, not so much upon them, as upon the circumstances of their daily life, in places where God's light is darkened, and His work destroyed, by the hands of men; in homes which they fly, not to, but from, upon their holidays. One wonders, indeed, upon what extent of actual observation is founded that singular creed of the Daily News, expressed, as it is, with almost Athanasian fervour:—'We are bound to believe that every one appreciates mountain glories, that he would not be found among them if he did not like them.' Alas! it is not so yet. But if, recognizing the beneficent and helpful power of noble scenery, we desire to widen the sphere of its influence so that, of all who shall be found among mountains, it may be truly said that they love them, let us not think to accomplish our purpose by making railways through their solitudes, and turning their hamlets into towns. If we are ever to raise men to communion with the powers of nature,—to develope in them the 'wise passiveness' of the 'heart that watches and receives' her lore—it will not be merely by giving them occasional and hurried glimpses of strange beauty, but by dignifying the labour, and adorning the surroundings of their daily life.