Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 150.djvu/267
ACCESS TO MOUNTAINS.
Amongst the hardy perennials with which we associate the names of our legislators, Professor Bryce’s yearly Access to Mountains Bill is not the least known. For nine years, as Mr Bryce sadly told the House of Commons, it has been struggling to come to the light, and in nine successive years it has perished—choked by malevolent chance or by the exuberance of parliamentary verbosity. This year it seemed that the time was at length arrived. On Tuesday, February 10th, Mr Bryce had the first place on the paper of the House of Commons with the following notice:—
“To call attention to the hardship suffered by her Majesty’s subjects, in being debarred from walking on large uncultivated tracts of mountain and moor land, particularly in Scotland, and to the necessity of securing their right of access to such tracts; and to move—That legislation is required whereby, subject to due provisions for the protection of property and of the privacy of dwelling-houses and pleasure-grounds, the right of access to uncultivated mountains and moorlands shall be secured to her Majesty’s subjects.”
Everything looked clear. The Tithes Bill, which was then occupying the energies of the House of Commons, should, according to its previous rate of progress, have been well on its way to the Lords. But in the House of Commons nothing happens but the unexpected. A remarkable access of vigour in the opposition of the Welsh members characterised the report stage of the Tithes Bill. Still more surprising was the vivid interest in the measure suddenly developed by Mr T. Healy and other Irish members. Into the causes of this change we need not enter. Its consequences were, that Scotland was once more trampled on by a tyrannical Government, and the day bespoken by Mr Bryce was appropriated to the general uses of the nation.
Once more the fortunes of the ballot befriended Mr Bryce, and he obtained the first place in the ballot for Friday, May 8th. But again the cup was dashed from his lips. The prolonged discussion in Committee on the Irish Land Bill made it necessary for the Government to demand the whole time of the House. The unfeeling Mr Smith declined to make any exception, even in favour of so old a friend, or to find Government time for the discussion, and even the most sympathetic of private members seem no way disposed to give it precedence over their own hobbies. There appears, therefore, every probability that another nine years may elapse before Mr Bryce has at last the chance of submitting his motion to the judgment of the House of Commons. Under these circumstances, it does not seem premature to forestall parliamentary discussion.
It must be confessed that the proposal is at the first blush an attractive one, especially perhaps to Southern ears. Englishmen who find themselves in Scotland as lawful and exclusive occupiers of its mountains and moorlands are few. Those who desire from them that enjoyment which is not exclusive are many. The problem which Mr Bryce has set himself is to improve the position of this latter class. Many a tourist whose only knowledge of the Highlands