Evening Post. FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1929. MENDING AN OLD BREAK

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 21, 25 January 1929, Page 8

Evening Post. FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1929. MENDING AN OLD BREAK

Geologically speaking, the changes which separated England from Europe and Europe from Asia Minor were mere matters of yesterday.

Europe, writes Professor Kirchoff in his "Earth and Man," was already inhabited by man when, at the commencement of post-Tertian times, there occurred two of' the most momentous geological changes in its history. In the south-east took place the irruption of the Aegean Sea, which severed Europe from Asia Minor, and joined the Black Sea to tho Mediterranean; and in the north-west an extensive subsidence of the land brought about the formation of the British Archipelago. How different would tho history of Europe, and indeed of the whole lruinan family, have been had these two mighty geological revolutions not occurred.

In the days Before those two little rifts took place there was no English Channel and no North Sea. The Thames was then a tributary of the Rhine, which poured its waters into the Atlantic somewhere between the Shetlands and Southern Norway. The continuity of the land surface over which the North Sea now rolls is proved by the submerged forests on either side and the bones of animals which have been dredged up by fishermen from the Dogger Bank.

Even at the present day, says Sir Archibald Geikie, an elevation of less that 600 feet would convert the whole of that sea into dry land from the north of Shetland to the headlands of Brittany. '

At the point where the final severance probably took place an elevation of a little more than a quarter of that amount would suffice to make a bridge. • The greatest depth of the Strait of Dover is less than 180 feet. If St. Paul's Cathedral were planted in the middle of the Strait, more than half of it would, as has often been pointed "out, be above water. And the breadth of this shallow streak of water is only about 20 miles. The rift that was made at the other corner of Europe is of still smaller dimensions. At its narrowest part the breadth of the Bosporus is less than half a mile, and it shoals in places to 120 feet.

Yet in their effect upon human history the supreme importance of these shallow and narrow streaks of water admirably illustrates the words of the poet—

Oh the little more, and how much it is! And the little less, and what worlds away!

The Strait of Dover was the making, first of the English nation and then of the British Empire. It protected the islanders from the invasions and the devastations to which the Continental nations were subject, enabled them to develop the free institutions which have served as models to the whole world, and luinecl their thoughts and their activities, whether they liked it or not, to sea power. Halifax touched the root of the matter in his "New Model at Sea," which appeared in 1694:—

It may be said now to England, "Martha, Martha, thou art busy about many things, but one thing is necessary." To the Question, "What shall we do to be saved in this World 1?" there is no. other Answer but this, ."Look to your Moate."

About a century later an equally competent observer on the other side of the Strait referred to it even more contemptuously as a "ditch." It was, said Napoleon, a ditch which with a little courage might be jumped, but though he was not lacking in courage he was never able to jump it. Yet he fully realised that it was this ditch that stood between him and the dominion of the world. On the 2nd July, 1804, he wrote more particularly on the subject to one of his vice-admirals as follows:—

Inform me also as to the position of the enemy,—where Nelson is. . . We have 1800 gunboats and cutters carrying 120,000 men and 10,000 horses between Etaples, Boulogne, Wimereux, and Ambleteuse. If we are masters of the Channel for six hours wo are masters of the world!

This same ditch was the undoing of the pinchbeck Napoleon who a century after Waterloo was attempting the task in which the real one had failed. The centenary of that battle found the Anzacs in Gallipoli in circumstances which revealed the two geological ditches as probably the two supreme strategical points in the World War. While the Navy of Britain was guarding the Channel and the North Sea, troops from the lands at the Antipodes, which her sea power had enabled her to colonise, were co-operating with British and French forces in striking a blow at the Dardanelles which is now conceded to have been one of the finest strategical conceptions of the War. Once more the saying was verified that "military history is only geography written in a different type." It may be that even if one were to strike out the word "military" this saying would still stand. The dependence of history upon geography is indeed a fact of which we are as little likely to lose sight in peace as in war, and the question arises whether in its military or'its non-military aspect it has any bearing upon a project which, after a long period of silence, is now being actively pushed again on both sides of the Channel. The idea of connecting England and France by a

tunnel under the Strait of Dover is, it seems, more than a hundred years old. When it was suggested by a French engineer early in the 19th century it was approved for a lime by Napoleon, and about half a century later plans were submitted to Napoleon 111. "In the '70's and '80's there was a strong agitation on the subject in England, but nothing came of it, and a revived agitation which had made considerable progress fifteen years ago was necessarily killed by the War. To-day France is again taking the lead, and M. Painleve, Minister of War, was quoted yesterday as saying that he regards the Channel tunnel as "a great and entirely feasible work in nowise detrimental to national defence." Mr. Baldwin is more cautious, but in treating the matter seriously, in pleading for a comprehensive investigation on nonparty lines, and in emphasising the economical side of the proposal he has taken the obviously correct course. It is surely by its economic and social effects that the scheme must be judged. The military fears which played so conspicuous a part in the discussions of forty and fifty years ago, and to which the approval of the two Napoleons doubtless contributed, cannot be revived to-day, even after a French Minister of War has blessed the scheme. France is no longer our traditional enemy, but our friend, and the more intimate the relations between the two countries become* the firmer will be the friendship. The military problem has surely been shattered by the development of modern explosives and poison gases. Instead of fearing an invading army, the experts would rather hope than an enemy might be silly enough to put all his forces into such a booby trap.