Page:A protest against the extension of railways in the Lake District - Somervell (1876).djvu/47

 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