If the Honister Pass steam-dragon has been baffled, other objectionable threats of invasion of Northern England’s recreation- and thinking-grounds are being made. Other projects are already astir. Our only chance of keeping Lakeland inviolate is to be on the watch with a powerful national, one might dare to say international, committee—for the Americans are as indignant as we are at the attempt on Borrodale—and the Scotch lakes and hills are in equal jeopardy—with a backing of Members of Parliament to help us at Westminster, and a considerable sum of money behind us for expenses if need be. This can, it is thought, best be done by forming a PERMANENT LAKE DISTRICT DEFENCE SOCIETY, which, in league with the Commons Preservation Society, and such associations with such kindred aims, as the Kyrle and Ruskin Societies are, shall have a Guarantee Fund of not less than £5000 ready for use. (pp. 54-55)
The Executive of the Borrodale and Derwentwater Defence Committee have issued circulars, of which I append a copy, and the Guarantee Fund already is in process of formation. (p. 55)
Some time hence, who knows, a wise Government may enable the Lake District to have a special Act to protect it from railroad outrage for the people, as has been done in the Yosemite Valley of America (though there the State not only provided an Act, but first bought it up for the people’s use). (p. 55)
Meanwhile it is suggested, that as many members of the Wordsworth Society have already shown their zeal in the cause, it would be a gracious act to the memory of the great poet if, as a body, they elected to co-operate with the Lake District Defence Society. (p. 55)….
Professor E. Dowden of Dublin, in a letter of protest against the steam-dragon of Honister, wrote:—"As one century generally discovers the sins of its predecessors, and is hard on them, I have some hopes that the twentieth century, so close at hand, may grow indignant with the nineteenth for its destruction of so much that forms part of the true wealth of life, and resolve to act more wisely.” Let us, as a Wordsworth Society, determine, so far as pertains to Westmorland and Cumberland, to help the nineteenth century to a timely repentance. England is beginning to become a nation that believes in education. There is hope that as the next generation will be much more busy to need the pleasure-grounds of Lakeland undestroyed, so it will be more capable of appreciating their peace and beauty undisturbed. (pp. 56-57)
(Transactions of the Wordsworth Society, 5 (1883), 45-58)
