ENGLISH CHANNEL SCHEME

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 15, 17 January 1918, Page 11

ENGLISH CHANNEL SCHEME

BOOMED AS FEASIBLE PLAN |

(By Sidney Low. in the San Francisco i Chronicle). I

If we could put back the bands of i the clock to '4th August, > 1914, and bo;-': gin the war afresli, one of the things wp'j should do would be to build a Channol ! Tunnel. ■

Knowing what we know now, we can i see that we should have initiated this ' great enterprise within a fortnight of the , opening of hostilities, placed it in the hands of th,e.. mqst competent engineers and contractors in Great Britain, Franco, and the United States, and told thorn that they could hay? any reasonable quirjber of pillions for the work, provided they could get it done- quickly. ■_ In that, case ivc shoujc? .ha,vp had our railwaj' lino of corr.nmnica.tion wi^h the continent in being and. operation a. year ur eighteen months, or perhaps even t-wp : years ago, and our situation at the'fvpnt. i and throughout the war zone, would bo , very .much more favoxirable than it. is. to-. day. . ■

I have just come back from a visit to that, area.- in -which- i had opportunities for e.x;uuin.ing .not only the actual fighting line, but thfc labour and transport conditions, behind -and at the basea and ports. Here, and here only, do you bsgin to understand, the stupendous task o{_ th^ administrative departments which have to supply an army equal to tho population of some European kingdoms with all it ne&ds to keep itseli alive and to destroy tl>.:- -oneiny.'

Think what, thai, means! Practically c-verythmg tliat hugo "oxpsdiency force" consumed comer- t<* j:- from acro?s the sea. BeEoro tho qons;ijr>raent gets to that "soiiiHwhere in Frsuco.".Avhich is iis ultimate destination,, it ;'.i made, t>ut tojjotber, or collected, somew-hcro in Britain. Ie is loaded up in tho north, or tho midlands', on a railway car or lorry, railed or wheeled down to one of pin- harbours.. lifted on shipboard by crane and derrick, stowed on'deck or in the hold, carried acro?s watcrp bejpfc by submarine ancj Hoatin.j mints hoisted out to a wharf at a French b;i.*3 |X>rt, packed, again on train or motor wagon, and so forwarded to the headquar'.ors, division, or unit for whioh it is \ntended

Everything, except fee aeroplanes, must 50 through that process, which has, to bo repeated -when caiy thing comes back, bo it an emptied box of cartridges or a dzmaged, twelve-inch, howitzer.

P.airjagpd human, beings must be dealt with in the fame way. The wounded soldier is vailed or motored to the pors of embarkation, placed on £hipbc.ard. ferried overseas, landed on the English coast, transferred to train or ear again on this side, and -so conveyed to his hospital ojj convalescent, homo in "Blighty." And so with every battalion or draft or individual sent out- or brought hack. . :

Now, consider what we 'should havq saved if some part at least of this haga human and material freightage conk! have been passed across without transhipment; witliput, any delay at the ports, without any need for precautions against leaned or submarine dangers.' !

Take the wountiod alone. No wg.ti.iug, no transfer, frou; train to ,vtrc,fcehnr ami' from arabular.co to hospital ship, no wwiing on a orowilcl boat, but oue srecotil, uninterrupted ioiiraey on wheels from tlm hospital bphind the iront to »ho heart oE England.

Or suppose Haig wanted reinforcements or a few million extra shells in a hurry. A score of trains could bo despatched, at ten-minut-o imer^pl^, to whirl the Mi'flispcnsiblc cargo without break or delay right, from the munitions a,rea3. or thq depots at home to the railhead near tho trenched.

In liif-ro pounds, shillings, and pence, w<; should Ih'.vc £;\vejl the cost of the, tuimal many t.ir:v>s over, and we should be, nifii.ii.fc* nearer the end of tho war.

Is ii. v.of> late even now to repair our omission? I presamu that the pace at xvliiqiv the Uvnn,el can be constructed i^ rr.aitjly, like niost ongineering problems, a question of expense.

An. American 'engineer has offered to make four sub-channel tubes, two for'rails; :m<l two for motor trucks, in thirty-five, day?. Th;\i seems oyprsanguine. But I ;un iold by those who ought to know that T\"ith modern machinery and n sufficient labour force the big hole can be bored through the channel bed in six months.

Tho money can bo provided. Say it is sixty, seventy, even a- hundred, millions, tho m>f.s of the war for a week, ten days, or a, i fortnight; it is not worth'arguing about. Thi; labour pan bo had too, if not lroni ibis country," then from China, India, Egypt, awl Italy. Tho army labour corps would find the coolies anil the navvies, if the piovernment' would give its directorate carte blanche io recruit.

If the works we.re bpgun next month the. tunnel might be,open in the late spring. • And if the war lasted throughout the summer, and autumn and winter of ,1918, which niauy ot us think extremely probable, we shall have recovered all the cost before the end comes, rendered the final stage of the campaign less burdensome and more effective, aud largely reduced the Iqss of life and destruction of property.

But the tunnel is worth making, even though it may not be finished in time to be used in the present war. The money will not be wasted. It will not go up in smoke like the millions wfc must spend on gas and shells and cartiidges. We shall have acquired an asset ot incalculable va]ue for commercial, political, and strategic purposes, a new route of world h-ansit, more important than the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, and more certain than .eitho\- of them, to yield a bounteous revenue on its capital cost. Tho money spent will add to our wealth instead of increasing our unproductive debt. It will knit the nations of the Western alliance closer and make their economic union easier; and it will render another attack upon them more difficult and unlikely.

Years ago I used to be among the opponents of the Channel Tunnel scheme; tqr I thought we should be foolish to deprive pursslves in any degree of the insularity which Nature had conferred upon us." But the aeroplane and the submarine have done that for us already.