THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIV, Issue 197, 29 July 1924, Page 6

THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.

CENTURY OLD DREAM. The British Government’s decision not to proceed further with th© investigation of the Channel Tunnel proposal (which was reported in our cables recently) closes another chapiter, but only a chapter, of u controversy which began before anyone now living was born. Such a summary dismissal was scarcely expected, for when Mr. Ramsay MacDonald was reminded that departmental pigeon-holes were filled with reports on the scheme—to which one more adverse decision will now bo added—he replied that these old reports related to conditions that had passed away, and that a new survey was uierefore justified. But although the Labour Cabinet has thus followed .the examples of its Conservative anu Liberal predecessors, it is most unlikely that we have heard the last of a proposal which dates back to 1802 when there was no Simplon or Otira: and no tubes under tfie Severn and the H udson rivers to show what engineers can accomplish. In fact, the Channel Tunnc? Parliamentary Committee is already preparing to renew the battle bv pressing for the appointment of a joint committee of the two Houses to take evidence in public regarding the advisability (and feasibility) of the scheme. And there is precedent for l’ ro l»S a ‘ tor a Channel Tunnel was made to Aapoxeon «■ oy a 4'reucu engineer, Mathieu but it is not surprising that nothing hame tnen ot a scheme which postulates the co-operation ot Kruuce and Lngland in 1000. .however, when the Napoleonic liars were over, another reucliman, de Gramond, submitted a detailed plan ui t LL f ourt «®o years later tile rieuch Government sounded Bnrem on the proposal, and m lafo pre/“•oW- 5 ' UlUs were P asse d Ia both uie Lutish anu rreiich Parliaments. Work was to have been carried out by an Anglo-i rencli company, but the concession lapsed owing to delay on the British siue Then in 188 U the SepUi-1 Las tern Railway Company began siuk‘hdepeuuently between Dover and Folkestone. But the sight of tunnels blasting through brijain s splendid isolation” was too much for popular opinion and the Government stopped the experiment. tn 1883 a committee, similar to that which is now wanted, reported unfavourably, and repeated attempts in succeeding years to revive the proposal nb tn detoated ' The same imagination, picturing an enemy invading Britain dr»t S h „ the T t “ n "el, forced the withdrawal of a Liberal Bill in 1907. But six years later, when Germany had become the enemy, there were those m«nt nO ? saw . la y ,c tunnel an instrument of great military value. During did wort 7 C, n“? e ’ fferries did sP*eud work for Britain in. speeding up inn . trans P° rt of men, munitions, and faster th “ tunnel would bo both raster than these and invulnerable to submarines and aircraft. It is not surprising, therefore, to find Marshal boen declaring after the war that a tunnel might have prevented the struggle, and would certainly have shorteneu it by at least two years. It is not politic to ask if it was any suspicion of French ambition that influenced the British Cabinet in its Z Ce "h-rf CIS ‘? n - but H is dear that the possibility of invasion could be ended by provision in the plans for the destruction or flooding of the tunnel at 1 lg “ of dan B er - And 171 any case the alarming development of aerial warfare has greatly reduced, if not destroyed, the value to Britain of the narrow seaway that has served her so well m her past history. On the S \ de a B .° rt has been .calculated " lat the tunnel would return at least 5 per cent, on the capital cost and it would conquer, fo r the Immense tr c' ffiC tO and from tment, the terrors of the worst short sea passage in. the world. With England linked, by iail way with France Loudon to the Pacific by railway would possibility. L ° nd ° n to Ca Pd°"‘i a