Dams
Local feeling, which indicates an almost universal conflict, is still very vocal and bellicose in. the Lakes. The "Friends of the Lakes" express scornful horror at the 'suggestion of raising Eruierdale Lake a few feet, and others who are friends of the lakes, without the capital letters, strongly desire that the water should be used for power, and to that end slightly raised. I lately spent a week or more on the edge of Wastwater, and recall that a great outcry was made some years ago when water was taken for a commercial purpose. No one, I think, could possibly claim that harm was done to the beauty of the place. Ennerdale itself already has a dam, and to my eyes such dams increase rather than spoil the general charm of the scene. The peculiar charm of England is due in the first place to the fact that it has been "humanised." Use and beauty have consented to a mutual relation. Even the lakes—as in Radnor—that have needed immense concrete dams are places of exceeding beauty. To my eyes the one aesthetic objection to such an inconspicuous dam as is proposed at Ennerdale is that the rise and fall of the water are increased and that the low-tide margin is unattractive. In any event, a raising of the level of such a lake is a bagatelle, even for the most sentimental lover of landscape, compared with the approved schemes for afforestation. I understand that the decision to make a National Park of the Lakes is about to be taken, when doubtless the Government will be "the god from the machine."
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