Autograph Letter Signed ('James Bryce') from James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, former President of the Alpine Club, to E. W. Hallifax, endorsing 'a protest [...] raised against the ruin wrought in Switzerland by the construction of tourist railways'.

12mo, 4 pp. 41 lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged paper, with slight discoloration to edges. 'It was high time that in England, whence so many mountain climbers and tourists go to the Alps, a protest should be raised against the ruin wrought in Switzerland by the construction of tourist railways up the slopes of the mountains'. Deplores the 'irretrievable harm' already done to 'some of the noblest landscapes in the world, [...] easily accessible from the populous cities of Central and Western Europe, such as those on the shores of the Lake of Lucerne'. The 'hill sides are scored by hideous lines and the peaks defaced by blatant hotels', and 'the intrusion of the train destroys the romantic quality and what may be called the sentiment of the scenery'. Describes the factor by which the gain 'to those who wish to reach without exertion a lofty point of view' is outweighed. Claims that there is 'already in Switzerland a strong and growing movement among lovers of nature and beauty to arrest this process of devastation'.