THE CHANNEL TUNNEL

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 26 September 1918, Page 6

THE CHANNEL TUNNEL

WIIY IT SHOULD BT MA-DE,

LONDON TO CONTINENT BY TRAIN

With the object of showing how the future of London and of the whole country depends on the construction of a submarine railway between England and France, Sir Arthur Fell, chairman :of the House of Commons Tunnel Com- j mittee, read a paper before the London Society recently. As soon as they could pass through the Channel Tunnel, said Sir Arthur, express trains would be able to traverse France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Turkey as far as Constantinople without difficulty or change of gauge. London had not yet, however, ' appreciated what the tunnel would mean for it, nor how much its future as the greatest city of the Old World would depend on the completion of the work. After the war there would be great and friendly rivalries between the i nations of Europe;. London could not stand still and hope to reap its share ;by simply erecting new theatres, bigger hotels, and great drapery stores. England was a small island, cut oft from the mainland by a stormy sea. Thus the isolation of the country from , the Continent was practically complete, and if the isolation continued after the war some other capital would have to be found for th«) new era to which we looked forward. I

It might be Paris or Vienna, or even Berlin or Brussels; but it must be a railway centre to and from which would run the great world expresses. To reach such a railway centra passengers from the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and other weaJthy South American States would go direct to Cherbourg, Rotterdam, or Harburg. London would thus be eide-tracked because of ite insular isolation. That would be the penalty which we should pay for our neglect to build the Channel Tunnel Railway.

The tuunel would not only help our island and its capital, but would be vital to the continued pre-eminence .and prosperity of our steamship lines, as carriers of the passenger traffic to Europe. He was confident that the construction of the. Francos-British Submarine Hailwav would be the earliest and greatest of all the works of peace which would be begun immediately the war is over—the first monument to the enduring friendship with, the nation which for four years had been fighting by our side for the liberty of the world. "Peace will rise on this world again," said Baron Emile d'Erlanger, who presided at the annual meeting of the Channel Tunnel Company, "and with it the day of the construction of the Channel Tunnel will dawn." No more striking example of British bulldog tenacity in oiyil life (had Wen given, he said, than by that 6mall group of men who^ for some 50 years, had madw the construction of the Channel Tunnel their battle cry. and * had enlisted tho majority of the nation and the "elite" of the nation under their banner.