790 MODIFICATIONS OF ASPECTS OF ORGANIC NATURE 



as having been specially concerned in the great and successful 

 undertaking of redeeming the Bordeaux Landes. But his remarks 

 upon it ^ have so much of value in them, and touch upon so many 

 of the multitudinous sides — historical, political, and economical — • 

 which this enterprise, and other State-supported enterprises, present 

 to us when we study them in their entirety, that I think I may be 

 allowed to quote them as they stand. After touching on the 

 dangers which pines more than other woods are exposed to from 

 the sparks which the railway train so readily and so fatally scatters 

 in such dry and parched districts ; but omitting the not inconsider- 



complained of by the landowners of Lancashire, they have in the great majority of 

 cases received a very substantial set-ofF in the increasing value of their land, both for 

 rental and for sale. 



'The alkali industry is a necessity in a manufacturing country. If it is an evil, it 

 is a necessary one. Sulphuric acid, the base of all alkali products, may be called the 

 heart of all manufacturing industries. The consumption of it is the surest gauge of 

 their condition. There is scarcely a manufactured article in daily use that is not 

 more or less dependent on it. To enhance the cost of its production by hasty or 

 ill-judged legislation, would enhance the cost of half the industrial products of the 

 country. It is not the greed of manufacturers that has increased the number of 

 alkali works, but it is the increased trade of the country that has demanded an 

 increased supply of an indispensable element of production. 



* If new works had not sprung up at Widnes or St. Helen's, they would certainly 

 have sprung up elsewhere. It is to be regretted that so many works have congregated 

 at Widnes and St. Helen's, The consumption of coal alone, a million tons at the 

 former and a million and a half at the latter annually, would of itself cause great 

 nuisance to the neighbouring districts ; but who, pray, is to blame for this evil ? Not, 

 certainly, the manufacturers who bought and leased the land offered them by the 

 landowners, but the landowners who offered it. 



'Complaints of injury done to trees, to the picturesque value of ornamental 

 property, do not come with very good grace from the very proprietors who have sold 

 and leased contiguous land at very high prices, for the expressed and avowed object of 

 erecting and extending the works they now wish to destroy. 



* Sir Bichard Brooke, whose name most frequently occurs in the report, and who is 

 undoubtedly the greatest sufferer in the picturesque value of his estate, has within 

 the last few years leased land immediately opposite his house, at a very high rental, 

 for the erection of alkali works and the deposit of alkali waste ; and, I understand, 

 has hundreds of acres more to be let for the same purpose : nor is he by any means 

 the only landowner who has let and sold land expressly for the erection of alkali 

 works. 



' There is a general desire among alkali manufacturers to minimise the nuisance 

 and injury caused by these works. Becent legislation has undeniably tended to that 

 result, and any further legislation in the same direction that is reasonable and 

 practicable will, I know, receive their hearty support ; but it will be a fatal mistake 

 if a somewhat onesided statement of local grievances should cause any hasty legislation 

 that would destroy an industry that is absolutely indispensable to the manufacturing 

 prosperity of the country.' 



^ Pages 297-300. 



