This progress has to be paid for in the form of a light tax levied upon the traveller to defray for the Swiss Alpine Club some portion of the expense incurred in keeping the huts in order and regularly supplying them with fire-wood. The original characteristic of the huts, which were intended to be mere emergency refuges open gratis to all, has somewhat suffered in this respect from the new policy. Visitors are now requested in most of them, by an appropriate notice, to deposit their contribution in a receptacle fastened to the wall. This may be the most convenient way of collecting the money due. But it means that sums of money—not inconsiderable in the opinion of any one badly in want—are left for rather long periods in uninhabited premises which are far from being inaccessible.
It has happened that cash-boxes have been rifled. A less objectionable way of managing this little piece of business is surely within the resources of civilisation. It is not justifiable that any other premium than wholesome exercise and natural beauty, should be held up as an inducement to make an excursion on the glaciers of Switzerland.
While here on the subject of huts, the awkward position which their great multiplication of late years entailed upon the British clubs, may be suitably laid before the reader. As the huts of the Swiss Alpine Club became more and more frequented, questions of preferential rights of admission came to the fore. It was obvious that non-Swiss clubs, able to grant terms of reciprocal admission to the Swiss, must obtain for their members, in the Swiss huts, preferential rights over Alpine clubs who were so by genuine profession and yet had no local habitation in the Alps or elsewhere in which they might hope to offer hospitality in their turn, as an acknowledgement of hospitality received.
Consequently, when notices were put up in the Swiss Alpine Club huts, which number now from seventy-five to eighty, showing what clubs enjoyed a right of admission on the score of reciprocity, the absence of any and every English club struck the eye. English visitors were then able to realise that they had been drawing benefit from the hospitality provided—for all and sundry, it is true—by a large body of private persons in Switzerland. In spite of every desire to remedy this situation by contributing to the expense of building and maintaining the Swiss huts, English climbers could not obtain a definite locus standi, for want of being able to come under a reciprocity clause. Even at present it would be idle to hope that English clubs may be quoted by name, beside the Swiss, French, German-Austrian, and Italian clubs. But the following arrangement was come to, on the initiative of English climbers, and with the concurrence of the Swiss Alpine Club:—
1. A committee was formed in London, of an administrative character, to serve as a rallying point for Englishmen who might wish to enter one of the sections of the Swiss Alpine Club. The members recruited in that fashion for the Swiss club formed an association of British members of the Swiss Alpine Club, which is recognised by the Swiss club, but has no corporate existence within that club.
2. The new association, which now numbers little less than 400 members, started a subscription with a view to providing the Swiss club with funds sufficient for the building of a first-class hut on the Klein Allalin Horn above Saas Fée, at the expense of £800. This hut was built by the care, and will remain under the administration of the Geneva section of the Swiss Alpine Club. It was completed and inaugurated this year (1912).
The Britannia hut deserves particular mention in these pages, because it has been contributed to by the ski-ing clubs of Great Britain, on account of the first-rate opportunities it offers for ski tours in the High Alps. It occupies a central position in the Mischabel range which, from the top of Monte Rosa to the glacier of Ried that rolls down from the Balfrin to within 4 miles of St. Niklaus, is one of the finest ski-ing fields of Switzerland.
The Strubel.