opinion.

But if there was not water enough in the chalk, are not the Londoners
rich enough to bring it from any distance?

My boy, in this also we will agree with the Commission--that we ought not
to rob Peter to pay Paul, and take water to a distance which other people
close at hand may want. Look at the map of England and southern
Scotland; and see for yourself what is just, according to geography and
nature. There are four mountain-ranges; four great water-fields. First,
the hills of the Border. Their rainfall ought to be stored for the
Lothians and the extreme north of England. Then the Yorkshire and
Derbyshire hills--the central chine of England. Their rainfall is being
stored already, to the honour of the shrewd northern men, for the
manufacturing counties east and west of the hills. Then come the lake
mountains--the finest water-field of all, because more rain by far falls
there than in any place in England. But they will be wanted to supply
Lancashire, and some day Liverpool itself; for Liverpool is now using
rain which belongs more justly to other towns; and besides, there are
plenty of counties and towns, down into Cheshire, which would be glad of
what water Lancashire does not want. And last come the Snowdon
mountains, a noble water-field, which I know well; for an old dream of
mine has been, that ere I died I should see all the rain of the Carnedds,
and the Glyders, and Siabod, and Snowdon itself, carried across the
Conway river to feed the mining districts of North Wales, where the
streams are now all foul with oil and lead; and then on into the western
coal and iron fields, to Wolverhampton and Birmingham itself: and if I
were the engineer who got that done, I should be happier--prouder I dare
not say--than if I had painted nobler pictures than Raffaelle, or written
nobler plays than Shakespeare. I say that, boy, in most deliberate
earnest. But meanwhile, do you not see that in districts where coal and
iron may be found, and fresh manufactures may spring up any day in any
place, each district has a right to claim the nearest rainfall for
itself? And now, when we have got the water into its proper place, let
us see what we shall do with it.

But why do you say we? Can you and I do all this?

My boy, are not you and I free citizens; part of the people, the
Commons--as the good old word runs--of this country? And are we not--or
ought we not to be in time--beside that, educated men? By the