NO PRIVATE TUNNEL

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1013, 2 July 1930, Page 9

NO PRIVATE TUNNEL

POLITICAL CHECK AGAINST CUT UNDER CHANNEL MOTION IN COMMONS LONDON, Tuesday. In the House of Commons, Mr. E. I Thurtle, Labour member for Shore- '| ditch, submitted a motion in favour of permitting private enterprise to ; engage in the building of a Channel tunnel. He said half the necessary 1 money could be raised in France, so t the annual cost to Britain w r the first five years would only be .00,000 and for the next three years £4,000,000 a year. The Prime Minister, Mr. MacDonald, said he had consulted the leaders of the other parties, Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Lloyd George, and both had agreed with the Government’s decision. Personally, he had favoured a Channel tunnel until 1924, hut - had now reached the conclusion that 1 if it were built it would make tremendous chajiges politically, economically, and in a military sense, which he , could not undertake. 1 Private construction, in any case. r was objectionable, said Mr. Macj Donald. Such an enterprise should ; j be in the hands of the people whose fate hung upon it. ' The motion was rejected by 1.4 ! votes to 172.