Page:A protest against the extension of railways in the Lake District - Somervell (1876).djvu/37

 Following the papers relating to the Lake District, will be found a letter describing, simply and graphically, the changes wrought by forty years in a single Yorkshire town; and an article from the Saturday Review, giving some additional glimpses of the scenery in a manufacturing neighbourhood. Both documents are of interest in connection with what has been said above;—presenting us as they do with a picture of the present daily surroundings of large masses of the people, and furnishing a series of choice illustrations of 'material prosperity.'

Now, it is an easy matter to condemn this state of things in toto, or to exclaim, with the much-shocked editor of a religious paper, that 'if one half of this be true, the legislature ought to interfere, and to interfere with vigour.' So also it is easy to blame in general those sometimes thoughtless and ignorant, but often well meaning though perplexed persons, who are more or less evidently involved in the sad progress of our industrial system, but of whose particular circumstances and difficulties we know nothing.

But it is a far different thing to deal actually with the evil; and worse than useless to shriek for legislative interference. Even now nothing is commoner than to hear manufacturers complain of the restraint of the law. The evil to be dealt with is not one but many. Like the hydra it has a hundred heads; but the strength