INDUSTRY AND SCENERY.
IT is stated in the Pall Mall Gazette that the Highland Water-Power Company's Bill, which is to be promoted in the forthcoming Session of Parliament, is directed towards the development of industries in that part of the United Kingdom by means of water-power, and that the measure is creating a good deal of interest in the North of Scotland. Our readers know that we have maintained that the era of steam industry is likely to pass away, at least in great part, and that we are glad to think it will be so, since the evils which seem to be inseparably connected with steam industry are incalculable. If electric or water power were substituted for steam, we have no doubt that health, comfort, and the preservation of beauty would have a chance much greater than they have now. There can be no question that steam industry on a large scale blots out the flan and blasts the soil, and that its effect on the human frame is deleterious. If we can produce commodities with equal facility under conditions of pure atmosphere and a pleasant natural environment, the world would be immeasur- ably the gainer; and those conditions, we believe, can and will be attained. We are therefore disposed to look with favour and hope on projects for establishing industries carried on by water-power as a step in the right direction,—but only under certain dear conditions, which we will explain in a moment.
Objections to this Highland project will come from those who are jealous for the claims of natural scenery. Among these we desire generally to classify ourselves. We hold most assuredly that any wanton and unnecessary violation of natural beauty is a crime against the highest interests of the human race. We think that an especial duty lies on those who live in these crowded islands to preserve as far as may be all the scenes of natural love- liness which we possess. We are of opinion that needless railways in the Lake District or Exmoor, to bring noise and vulgarity into scenes of solitude and grandeur for the purpose of making dividends for investors, are utter abomina- tions. Our bias would therefore be with those who may be called the 93 ethetic opponents of proposed Highland industries. But we feel the great importance of two considerations. In the first place, in spite of Talleyrand's cynical saying, men must live, and the mass must live by phyaical industry. Now in the Scottish Highlands physical industry on the soil can only produce at the best a poor and precarious living. Like the West of Ireland, the Scottish Highlands produce little more than herbage, and they cannot naturally sustain a high form of social life. The type of humanity is excellent in many ways, but its efflorescence is checked by the niggardliness of Nature, which under such conditions justifies the economic deductions of Malthus, Ricardo, and MIX But if the soil cannot yield to man the conditions of his industry, those conditions must come from another source. Now the obvious source in the Highlands is water. If only London and the Home Counties had one tithe of the water which is tumbling down the hill- sides of Northern Scotland and running to waste at the present time, we should be relieved of a water problem that looks ominous. In water evidently is to be found the solution of the question of industry in such regions as those of the Scottish Highlands. There is no danger that the supply would be inadequate, for it is indefinite, it cannot practically be exhausted ; within the same area there is no more abundant supply in the world. We think, therefore, that, if our con- tention be granted that a better physical and social life might be attained in the Highlands, the utilisation of water as the motor-agent in production must be acknowledged.
But there is the second consideration which cannot be shirked. If we believed that Highland industry meant necessarily the growth of big and dirty and unhealthy manufacturing towns in the Highlands, we should say that the price to be paid for increase of industry was too high, and that the echo of machinery should never be permitted to disturb the mountain solitudes. But we must get places like Leeds and Oldham and Wolverhampton out of our minds; nobody wants to reproduce them in unspoiled regions. One must think rather of places in which industry has been in some degree reconciled with the preservation of natural beauty, like the silk and Lace. making towns and villages of Northern Italy and Switzerland. We have lost not a little of our lace industry to Switzerland in recent years, but one does not, in visiting the Swiss districts where lace is made, perceive any marked demoralisation or ugliness. Even in less favoured regions, in some of the French indus- trial towns and villages, for instance, and under conditions. moreover, of steam industry, there is a quiet and cleanliness and a pleasant aspect of things which must strike the most superficial observer. The New England manufacturing towns and villages, like those situated on the river Merrimac, which largely use water-power, are quite attractive places, with their clear air, their multitudes of trees, and the abundance of space. They represent the ideal of the industrial town of the future, so far as physical environment goes, better than do the gloomy towns of Lancashire and the Black Country, which seem as if they should be the abodes of lost souls. The problem for us is whether industry is compatible with a high morality and with the love of natural beauty. With the moral question we are not now directly concerned, though we fully admit its close alliance with the question of natural beauty. What we contend is that human industry ought not to be incompatible with loving regard for the beauty of the earth. Under the old forms of industry the blacksmith's forge or the carpenter's shop, so far from out- raging Nature, seemed to harmonise with her designs, and even to add a farther element of interest to her scenes of loveliness. We admit that the same cannot be said of a steam cotton-mill or a huge chemical factory. If such places must be, let them be situated (as in England they mainly are) in the least interesting parts of the country. But we do not see why the workshop whose machines are fed by the running water, or the well-built mill with its electric engines, in both cases with clear atmosphere, should not, in process of time, so change the conditions of industry as to reconcile once more industrial life with the life of Nature, so that the harsh dissonance which has developed during the era of steam may yield to a union between the cosmic purpose and the honest daily toil of man. There is, again, no reason why a factory
per se should be uglier than one of those great tithe-barns which are scattered about England, and add to, instead of destroying, the beauty of the places in which they are situated.
If, then, water-power industries are to be established in the Highlands, Parliament should insist that the blundering ignorance which allowed our present industrial towns to grow up shall not be repeated. There must be no more herding together of human beings like animals; there must be no more narrow streets and alleys, no exclusion of sunlight and pure air, no wanton destruction of natural objects. We should hope that the industries to be established would be generally small ones, and we should trust that co - operative enterprises might succeed. But in any case, the most careful regulations must be made to secure decency, comfort, and the preserva- tion of natural beauty,—which is quite compatible with a considerable diversion of water for industrial purposes. It will be strange if the substitution of water and electric power for steam should greatly affect the locale as well as the methods of our manufactures ; and yet this seems probable. The substi• tution will evidently be gradual, and large steam plants may remain in certain areas for generations to come, just as industrial economy may dictate the preference for steam- power. But gradually, as it seems, new areas will become dotted over with new mills running on different lines, and regions now sparsely peopled, but with great natural facili- ties in the way of mountain streams, will slowly grow into hives of industrial activity. Thus England, which has many rivers but few torrents, may conceivably decline relatively, while Scotland, Ireland, and Wales may increase in industrial power in the future. But, whatever happens, we may hope that the errors which marked the too rapid rise of steam industry in the last century will not be permitted to recur in the newer forms of industry in the immediate future. In a word, what we desire is that we shall meet the possibility of a new industrial revolution with open eyes, and endeavour not to strangle the new methods, but to arrange that they shall grow up under conditions which will insure no wanton and unnecessary sacrifice of natural beauty. We want not to kill water-power industries, but to make them compatible with a sound and healthful way of life.
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