ANOTHER VOICE
The only way to make sense of mass prosperity
AUBERON WAUGH
Although neither nature nor inclina- tion has equipped me for the role of a walker, my dear Wife walks long distances with great enthusiasm, and so do many of her friends — sometimes, even, along the very Pembrokeshire coast where a couple called Dixon was recently found murdered, tied up and shot by some unknown assailant. Although my emotions were vicarious, as is so often the case as one shudders, laughs and cringes one's way through the day's news, and although they may have been accompanied, as is so often the case, by a slight frisson of relief that such a fate was unlikely to befall me personally, I felt that for once I could join the nation in its great convulsion of anger and bewilderment. The Dixons were de- scribed by friends as 'the nicest couple in the world'. They were respectable, middle- class people. They might almost have been two of Us. Who could possibly wish to do such a beastly thing to them? For once my stern journalistic training, by which we must always try to see the other fellow's point of view, began to falter. How could one possibly feel understanding or compas- sion for such a monster? Would red-hot branding irons not provide a suitable punishment? It was only when I saw a photograph of the Nicest Couple in the World — he bearded, in shorts, she with a knapsack on her back — that sanity began to reassert itself.
The Ramblers' Association has deman- ded that all the 4.5 million acres of Green Belt land around London and the greater conurbations should forthwith be opened to ramblers. Most of this is privately owned farmland, but it inevitably includes wood- land, riversides and parklands from which the general public is theoretically excluded by non-existent laws of trespass. Ramblers can perfectly well ramble over these acres, if they choose, and there is nothing which anybody can do about it. By demanding the right to ramble, in their shorts and their back-packs, over other people's property — and almost certainly demanding the right to have unobstructed paths laid out for them, every mountain and hill made low before their democratic progress, every valley exalted — they are effectively denying any right of private property, any right to solitude. In Sweden, as Mr Alan Mattingly, director of the Ramblers, told us on Wednesday, free public access to the
countryside is a much appreciated common law right. There is no reason why it should not work in this country, he argued. Every meadow and bosky spot must be filled with bearded men in shorts, women with knap- sacks, saying, 'Hi-de-hi' and 'Ho-de-ho' to each other, or `Skol', or whatever Swedes say to each other on these occasions.
I suppose it all depends on what he means by 'working' in Sweden. Sweden works, of course, in the sense that Swedes are born (in ever decreasing numbers), eat, copulate and eventually (thank God) die, without the extremes of violence or starva- tion which one sees in such countries as the United States of America or Ethiopia. They put up repulsive buildings and live in them, washing their almost hairless bodies with great thoroughness under the shower whenever necessary. Their conversation is so boring it makes one gasp and stretch one's eyes, and they have not had an original thought between them in the last 150 years. But my purpose in examining the Swedes as mentors is not to suggest that they are a sub-species of humanity, probably without immortal souls, who might usefully and blamelessly be killed. It is merely to ask whether we have anything to learn from them in the enjoyment of life.
When the Prince of Wales recently suggested that it would be a mistake for the Highlands of Scotland to be made too readily accessible to mass tourism, he was greeted by howls of derision from the Sun. By what system should access be res- tricted? Perhaps the Ramblers' Associa- tion should set examinations, whereby only the most expert naturalists and nimble ramblers were granted licences to ramble in certain designated areas. Or the Gov- ernment might step in to establish • such rambling as the privilege of managers, executives, single mothers, inner cities of both sexes, police and members of the Security Service.
Any such system, needless to say, is repugnant to whatever idea of freedom the English have traditionally entertained. The easiest way to restrict access is by not providing the roads, sign-posts, car-parks, litter bins and toilet facilities which attract these people in the first place. But local government is simply not capable of such self-denial. Might as well expect a leopard to change its spots as any local authority to refrain from putting notices and toilet facilities over its areas of natural beauty.
However, the Prince of Wales has cer- tainly put his finger on what is one of the main inspirations of the Green movement. This has nothing to do with rare moths or insects, although people are prepared to jump on any entomological or lepidopter- ous bandwagon which presents itself. It has nothing to do with elephants or whales or tropical rain forests, although most of us are prepared to express concern for these species, if asked. The whole thing derives — like the original Red Army Faction in Germany — from a horror at the phe- nomenon of mass prosperity and mass consumerism.
The chief impediment to enjoyment of the good life in the West is the sight, noise and smell of our fellow-humans enjoying their own version of the good life in close proximity to ourselves. When, two months ago, I visited the Great Wall of China for the first time, and found it swarming, swarming, swarming with fellow human beings from all over the world, I vowed that my travelling days were over. From now on, I would cultivate my own parks, lakes and pleasaunces in Somerset. If I felt the urgent need to see an elephant or a whale, I would work hard, save up, and buy one. It is inconceivable that elephants will ever disappear from the face of the earth. If their numbers are reduced to a few hundred, that will make it all the more interesting to see the survivors. But if conservation and the mass enjoyment of nature are left to governments and demo- cratic demand, such an apparatus of bureaucracy and oppression will be created as will make life on earth hell for all of us. That is the lesson which should be read to the Ramblers' Association. If they want a green field to walk on, or solitude from now on, they must work hard, save up and buy it. Until ramblers come to terms with the fact that they are not universally liked, we must prepare for more tragedies of the sort we have just seen in Pembrokeshire.
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