THE SILVER STREAK IN DANGER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4161, 22 August 1881, Page 4

THE SILVER STREAK IN DANGER.

Sir Edward Watkin has unfolded a prospect of the completion of the Channel Tunnel in five years, and the possibility fills the Times with alarm. Tho silver streak is in danger. Tha security of our insular position is threatened, and Printing-house Square was perturbed by horrible visions of a foreign invasion. When the tunnel is completed, a force of some thousand men — " secretly concentrated in one of tho Channel ports and suddenly landed on the coast of Kent, might seize the English end of tho tunnel aud entrench themselves there." What the English navy would be doing in the meantime does not appear, nor is any explanation aftorded ua how "some thouBands " of soldiers are to be moved ao "secretly and suddenly" as to make a descent upon our shores, not only before a declaration of war, but before wo innocent islanders even dreamed of the existence of hostile intentions on the part of our neighbours. The marvel increases when we learn that in addition to the thousands landed in Kent a " disposable army very far in excess" of all the troops we could muster to repel an invader is to be waiting at the French end of the tunnel in readiness to bo carried across in three days to English soil. The Times seems to have extraordinary notions of the rapidity with which an immense army, with all its material, can be conveyed by rail. <c A few hours might be enough ; a few days certainly would." Surely this is the exaggeration of the panicmonger. Apart altogether from tho hope which every one must entertain that an invasion of England is about the very last enterprise which France would undertake, we may surely assume with confidence, that the danger of such a bandit swoop upon our shores, like a thunder-bolt from a clear sky, is too remote, not to say impossible, a contingency to deserve a moment's consideration, compared with the great and immediate advantages of a through railway between France and England. Rven if . we fully contemplated a war with France in tho year 1890, that would offer no substantial reason for not proceeding with the construction of the tunnel. It is difficult to pierce the bed of tho Channel ; it would be the easiest thing in the world to flood the tunnel or blook it effectively within five minutes of a declaration of war. The moment the French Ambassador received his papers, a mine could be fired which would render invasion impossible, at all events from beneath, the Channel. — Rome Newa.