THE CHANNEL TUNNEL

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20845, 1 July 1939, Page 15 (Supplement)

THE CHANNEL TUNNEL

(H. D. Ziman in Daily Telegraph.)

TO BUILD or not to build a Channel Tunnel ? That is the question. The French Government is being urged by a number of Deputies to make fresh approaches to the British Government with a view to construction. When Charles James Fox paid his memorable visit to Paris in 1802 after the Peace of Amiens, one of the schemes which he discussed with the great Napoleon, then first Consul, for bringing about an alliance between the British and French nations was a tunnel to link the two countries. Plans for such a tunnel were exhibited at the Luxembourg and elsewhere by a French engineer, M. Mathieu. It was to be formed of two super-imposed sections, the upper paved for horse-diligence and lit by oil lamps, the lower purely for drainage. How Mathieu proposed to ventilate his tunnel is now (and, perhaps was then) obscure. But the revival of war effectively discouraged any idea of a Franco-British Channel Tunnel, and the same scheme remained practically Dormant for Half a Century. By the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851 the friendship of the two nations looked solid enough to warrant a physical link. M. Cordier, the geologist, had described his recollections of Mathieu’s plans to another French engineer, M. Thome de Gamond, who had been working upon fhe possibilities of cross-Channel communication since the 1830’s and continued to do so till the 1880’s. Five species of cross-Channel bridge, a system of steam-ferries between immensely long piers, and an iron tunnel resting on (and not below) the bed of the Channel were projected by him in turn, and most of his schemes have been reincarnated at intervals in other minds. But the favourite scheme both of Thome de Gamond and his successors was a tunnel through the impervious “old grey chalk” of the Channel-bed. Thome de Gamond joined forces with an English engineer, William Lowe; with them worked also Sir James Brunless (who built the railway tunnel beneath the Mersey) and Sir John Hawkshaw (assist to de Lesseps on the Suez Canal). The first experimental borings, blessed by the minister of Napoleon 111., were about to take place when the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War diverted French energies. A fresh start from the French side was, however, made in 1872, when the British Government declared it “had no objection in principle.” Companies were formed and shafts sunk in both countries indeed, headings over a mile long had been driven from either coast, when, in 1881, Lord Wolseley’s Opposition on Military Grounds disquieted the minds both of the public and the thfen Cabinet. A scientific commission appointed in 1882 to examine the question informed the Government that it was “impossible for the tunnel to be used by the enemy in case of an attack,” but the next year a committee of Lords and Commons decided by six votes to four that the construction of a Channel Tunnel would weaken national defence. It is upon grounds of defence that the tunnel has been consistently opposed during the fifty-odd years since Lord Wolseley’s protest, though the economic and even the technical risks of a Channel Tunnel have also been urged more intermittently. Lord Sydenham, a strong advocate of the Channel Tunnel and a former Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, scrutinised Lord Wolseley’s views a generation later. He found that the field-marshal had admitted in giving evidence that “fifty men at the entrance of the tunnel could prevent an army coming through it,” but in a written memorandum he advanced the more mysterious objection that “were a tunnel made, England as a nation could be destroyed without any warning whatever, when England was in a condition of profound peace.” Lord Wolseley seems to have meant that a surprise attack might be made by an infiltration of Soldiers Disguised as Tourists, and that the political controllers of the State would prove too dilatory to deal with the situation. For by 1899 he himself seems to have withdrawn all objections to the scheme “if the decision to block the channel were left in the hands of the professional sailors at the Admiralty.” With this in view the plans of the Channel Tunnel included until quite recently (and may do still) the erection, well out at sea, of a lighthouse with facilities for immediate flooding of the tunnel. Thus the trusty British Navy patrolling the area could safeguard the lighthouse, and hence the tunnel, even if the military and the civilians neglected their duty.

Boon or Menace? : : Various Arguments

But a severe dent had been made in the formerly favourable attitude of the British public. Lord Randolph Churchill, in a speech w r hich his son tells us greatly amused the House of Commons in 1889, remarked that “the reputation of England has hitherto dependent upon her being, as it were, a virgo intacta.” Mr Balfour put the point a little more delicately: “So long as the ocean remains our friend, do not let us deliberately destroy its power to help us.” To a nation rightly brought up to believe that Britain’s long immunity from invasion was due to her position as an island protected by her own sea-power, such arguments made their appeal at a time when tension with France was on the increase—as it was at the end of the nineteenth century. They did not seem so convincing when the Entente ripened a few years later into a Closer and Closer Friendship. None the less, the Committee of Imperial Defence vetoed the scheme in 1907, and vetoed it again in 1914, about a fortnight before the outbreak of war. The heads of the two Services, the future Lord Ypres and Lord Milford Haven, were both, according to Mr Churchill, favourable to the tunnel before the war, but Mr Asquith summoned Lord Kitchener, who voiced the traditional Service opposition. Lord Ypres in later years, swung round to the critics of the scheme, on the ground that his strategy after Mons would have been adversely affected by the need of protecting the tunnel-head. Marshal Foch, in 1921, took the opposite view. “ Had there been a tunnel under the Channel before the war, it might (he said) have prevented the war”; later he maintained that it could, at the least, have shortened the war by two years. He spoke as a Frenchman, with tha thought of the coal, the munitions and the men who might have been poured into France regardless of submarines or of delays in loading and unloading. It is equally reasonable to look at it from the British side and wonder now many cargoes of food and raw materials which were sunk in the narrow seas might have been saved if they had been transported by rail all the way from the Mediterranean or the French Atlantic coast. The situation to-day in the event of another war is more complex by reason of the greater threat from the bomber. Whether it is easier to protect against aircraft tramp ships in convoys or a fixed tunnel-head is not so far established. The Committee of Imperial Defence reported against any Channel Tunnel in 1924. But in 1930 they were not so much opposed in principal as “unable to Discover a Single Advantage in it.” Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s Governr ment issued a White Paper full of economic doubts, but stressing not the military indefensibility of the tunnel so much as the increase of military commitment in its defence. It seems possible that the advisers of the Crown have by now swung round further in their opinions. For it is worth recalling that Lord Wolseley, the originator of military opposition, said that it was only a French attack which was to be feared and that in a war with any other Power the tunnel would be a help, but not a danger. It is, indeed, difficult in these days when we dip beneath the earth for our self-pro-tection to believe that a tunnel dug beneath the sea is a threat to our safety rather than an addition. But would it pay us upon other grounds—in times of peace? The Channel Tunnel Committee appointed under the Economic Advisory Council reported in 1939 that “although some interests would be adversely affected, the construction of a Channel Tunnel, by creating new traffic, and thus increasing trade, would be of Economic Advantage to the Country.” This was the view of the Committee’s majority—Sir Edward Peacock, Sir Frederick Lewis (now Lord Essendon), Sir Charles Hindley and Sir Henry Strakosch. Lord Ebdisham wrote a Minority Report, declaring that “any resultant advantages are uncertain . . . whilst there would be a definite detriment to substantial portions of established industries, such for instance, as shipping and agriculture." Mr MacDonald’s Government made the most of such strictures in their White Paper opposing “a reversal of the policy pursued by successive Governments for nearly 50 years,” but were apparently insufficiently convinced themselves to risk a defeat in the House of Commons. A debate* was allowed, the Whips were taken off, and a motion in favour of the tunnel was very narrowly defeated, largely by the influence on members of var iou* “Elder Statesmen” of ail parties.