I am partly conscious that throughout these lectures I have kept my face
towards the past. That has been because I have been loth to look at the
present, and almost afraid to peep into the future. The Isle of Man is
not now what it was even five-and-twenty years ago. It has become
too English of late. The change has been sudden. Quite within my own
recollection England seemed so far away that there was something beyond
conception moving and impressive in the effect of it and its people upon
the imagination of the Manx. There were only about two steamers a week
between England and the Isle of Man at that time. Now there are about
two a day. There are lines of railway on this little plot of land, which
you might cross on foot between breakfast and lunch, and cover from
end to end in a good day's walk. This is, of course, a necessity of the
altered conditions, as also, no doubt, are the parades, and esplanades,
and promenades, and iron piers, and marine carriage drives, and Eiffel
Tower, and old castles turned into Vauxhall Gardens, and fairy glens
into "happy day" Roshervilles. God forbid that I should grudge the
factory hand his breath of the sea and glimpse of the gorse-bushes; but
I know what price we are paying that we may entertain him.
Our young Manxman is already feeling the English immigration on his
character. He is not as good a man as his father was before him. I dare
say that in his desire to make everything English that is Manx, he
may some day try to abolish the House of Keys, or at least dig up the
Tynwald Hill. In one fit of intermittent mania, he has already attempted
to "restore" the grand ruins of Peel Castle, getting stones from
Whitehaven, filling up loop-holes, and doing other indecencies with
the great works of the dead. All this could be understood if the young
Manxman were likely to be much the richer for the changes he is bringing
about. But he is not; the money that comes from England is largely taken
by English people, and comes back to England.