Page:A protest against the extension of railways in the Lake District - Somervell (1876).djvu/62

 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