ABSTRACT
If the land only is affected, if health is not materially interfered with, if manufactures can flourish with due regard to human health, we had better interfere as little as we can with manufacturers, and let them have as much scope as possible. Seeing how other countries tread on our toes, we must allow a certain quantity of land to deteriorate in [aesthetic] value, whilst hundreds and thousands oflabourers are employed earning livelihoods for themselves and their families. 1 \1
Following Franz-Josef Bruggemeier's approach to industrialisation and its destructive effects in Germany's Ruhrgebiet, it is useful to think of the 'protected' Manchester region as an 'industrial reserve' that contained big business, the polar opposite of later wilderness reserves and national parks. 1IG Before midcentury both local and national government could have done more to protect the townspeople and environment of industrialising Lancashire from the 'smoke demon'. But, as was the case in the Ruhrgebiet, 'Rather than reducing pollution, society adapted to the new industrial conditions' .117
