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If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Tunnel Under the Channel - -Author: Thomas Whiteside - -Release Date: November 7, 2021 [eBook #66685] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Brian Wilsden, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital - Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TUNNEL UNDER THE CHANNEL *** -Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. - -[Illustration] - - - - - Thomas Whiteside - - The Tunnel Under the Channel - - [Illustration] - - SIMON AND SCHUSTER · NEW YORK · 1962 - - - - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION - IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM - COPYRIGHT © 1961, 1962 BY THOMAS WHITESIDE - PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC. - ROCKEFELLER CENTER, 630 FIFTH AVENUE - NEW YORK 20, N. Y. - - MOST OF THE MATERIAL IN THIS BOOK ORIGINATED IN - _The New Yorker_ AS A SERIES OF ARTICLES, - WHICH HAVE BEEN HERE EXPANDED. - - FIRST PRINTING - - LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 62-9744 - MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - BY AMERICAN BOOK-STRATFORD PRESS, INC., NEW YORK - - - - -_To Karen, Anne, Jimmy_ - - - - -[Illustration: One] - - -IN THE SOCIAL HISTORY of England, the English Channel, that proud sea -passage some three hundred and fifty miles long, has separated that -country from the Continent as by a great gulf or a bottomless chasm. -However, at its narrowest point, between Dover and Cap Gris-Nez—a -distance of some twenty-one and a half miles—the Channel, despite -any impression that storm-tossed sea travelers across it may have of -yawning profundities below, is actually a body of water shaped less -like a marine chasm than like an extremely shallow puddle. Indeed, the -relationship of depth to breadth across the Strait of Dover is quite -extraordinary, being as one to five hundred. This relationship can -perhaps be most graphically illustrated by drawing a section profile of -the Channel to scale. If the drawing were two feet long, the straight -line representing the level of the sea and the line representing the -profile of the Channel bottom would be so close together as to be -barely distinguishable from one another. At its narrowest part, the -Channel is nowhere more than two hundred and sixteen feet deep, and for -half of the distance across, it is less than a hundred feet deep. It is -just this extreme shallowness, in combination with strong winds and -tidal currents flowing in the Channel neck between the North Sea and -the Atlantic, that makes the seas of the Strait of Dover so formidable, -especially in the winter months. The weather is so bad during November -and December that the odds of a gale's occurring on any given day are -computed by the marine signal station at Dunkirk at one in seven, -and during the whole year there are only sixty periods in which the -weather remains decent in the Channel through a whole day. Under these -difficult conditions, the passage of people traveling across the -Channel by ferry between England and France is a notoriously trying -one; the experience has been mentioned in print during the last hundred -years in such phrases as "that fearful ordeal," "an hour and a half's -torture," and "that unspeakable horror." Writing in the _Revue des -Deux Mondes_ in 1882, a French writer named Valbert described the trip -from Dover to Calais as "two centuries ... of agony." Ninety-odd years -ago, an article dealing with the Channel passage, in _The Gentleman's -Magazine_, asserted that hundreds of thousands of people crossing -the Strait each year suffered in a manner that beggared description. -"Probably there is no other piece of travelling in civilized countries, -where, within equal times, so much suffering is endured; certainly it -would be hard to find another voyage of equal length which is so much -feared," the author said, and he went on to report that only one day -out of four was calm, on the average, while about three days in every -eight were made dreadful to passengers by heavy weather. He concluded, -with feeling, "What wonder that, under such circumstances, patriotism -often fails to survive; and that if any wish is felt in mid-Channel, it -is that, after all, England was not an island." - -How many Englishmen, their loyalty having been subjected to this -strain, might express the same wish upon safely gaining high ground -again is a question the writer in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ did not -venture to discuss. However, there is no question about the persistence -with which, during the past century at least, cross-Channel ferry -passengers have spoken about or written about the desirability of some -sort of dry-land passage between England and France. Engineers have -been attracted to the idea of constructing such a passage for at least -a hundred and fifty years. During that time, they have come up with -proposals for crossing the Channel by spanning it with great bridges, -by laying down submersible tubes resting on the sea bottom or floating -halfway between sea bed and sea level, or even by using transports -shaped like enormous tea wagons, whose wheels would travel along rails -below sea level and whose platforms would tower high above the highest -waves. But more commonly than by any other means, they have proposed to -do away with the hazards and hardships of the Channel boat crossing by -boring a traffic tunnel under the rock strata that lie at conveniently -shallow depths under sea level. The idea of a Channel tunnel, at once -abolishing seasickness and connecting England with the Continent by an -easy arterial flow of goods and travelers, always has had about it a -quality of grand simplicity—the simplicity of a very large extension -of an easily comprehended principle; in this case, digging a hole—that -has proved irresistible in appeal to generations not only of engineers -but of visionaries and promoters of all kinds. - -The tunnel seems always to have had a capacity to arouse in its -proponents a peculiarly passionate and unquenchable enthusiasm. -Men have devoted their adult lives to promoting the cause of the -tunnel, and such a powerful grip does the project seem to have had -on the imagination of its various designers that just to look at -some of their old drawings—depicting, for example, down to the -finest detail of architectural ornamentation, ventilation stations -for the tunnel sticking out of the surface of the Channel as ships -sail gracefully about nearby—one might almost think that the tunnel -was an accomplished reality, and the artist merely a conscientious -reporter of an existing scene. Such is the minute detail in which the -tunnel has been designed by various people that eighty-six years ago -the French Assembly approved a tunnel bill that specified the price -of railway tickets for the Channel-tunnel journey, and even contained -a clause requiring second-class carriages to be provided with stuffed -seats rather than the harder accommodations provided for third-class -passengers. And an Englishman called William Collard, who died in -1943, after occupying himself for thirty years with the problem of -the Channel tunnel, in 1928 wrote and published a book on the subject -that went so far as to work out a time-table for Channel-tunnel -trains between Paris and London, complete with train and platform -numbers and arrival and departure times at intermediate stations in -Kent and northern France. As for the actual engineering details, a -Channel tunnel has been the subject of studies that have ranged from -collections of mere rough guesses to the most elaborate engineering, -geological, and hydrographic surveys carried out by highly competent -civil-engineering companies. Interestingly enough, ever since the days, -a century or so ago, when practical Victorian engineers began taking up -the problem, the technical feasibility of constructing a tunnel under -the Channel has never really been seriously questioned. Yet, despite -effort piled on effort and campaign mounted on campaign, over all the -years, by engineers, politicians, and promoters, nobody has quite been -able to push the project through. Up to now, every time the proponents -of a tunnel have tried to advance the scheme, they have encountered -a difficulty harder to understand, harder to identify, and, indeed, -harder to break through than any rock stratum. - -The difficulty seems to lie in the degree to which, among Englishmen, -the Channel has been not only a body of water but a state of mind. -Because of the prevalence of this curious force, the history of the -scheme to put a tunnel below the Channel has proved almost as stormy -as the Channel waves themselves. Winston Churchill, in an article -in the London _Daily Mail_, wrote in 1936, "There are few projects -against which there exists a deeper and more enduring prejudice than -the construction of a railway tunnel between Dover and Calais. Again -and again it has been brought forward under powerful and influential -sponsorship. Again and again it has been prevented." Mr. Churchill, -who could never be accused of lacking understanding of the British -character, was obliged to add that he found the resistance to the -tunnel "a mystery." Some thirty-five times between 1882 and 1950 -the subject of the Channel tunnel was brought before Parliament in -one form or another for discussion, and ten bills on behalf of the -project have been rejected or set aside. On several occasions, the -Parliamentary vote on the tunnel has been close enough to bring the -tunnel within reach of becoming a reality, and in the eighties the -construction of pilot tunnels for a distance under the sea from the -English and French coasts was even started. But always the tunnel -advocates have had to give way before persistent opposition, and always -they have had to begin their exertions all over again. Successive -generations of Englishmen have argued with each other—and with the -French, who have never showed any opposition to a Channel tunnel—with -considerable vehemence. The ranks of pro-tunnel people have included -Sir Winston Churchill (who once called the British opposition to the -tunnel "occult"), Prince Albert, and, at one point, Queen Victoria; and -the people publicly lining themselves up with the anti-tunnel forces -have included Lord Randolph Churchill (Sir Winston's father), Alfred, -Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Professor Thomas Huxley, and, more -recently, First Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. Queen Victoria, once -pro-tunnel, later turned anti-tunnel; her sometime Prime Minister, -William E. Gladstone, took an anti-tunnel position at one period when -he was in office, and later, out of it, turned pro-tunnel. Throughout -its stormy history the tunnel project has had the qualities of fantasy -and nightmare—a thing of airy grace and claustrophobic horror; a long, -bright kaleidoscope of promoters' promises and a cavern resounding with -Cyclopean bellowing. Proponents of the tunnel have called it an end to -seasickness, a boon to peace, international understanding, and trade; -and they have hailed it as potentially the greatest civil-engineering -feat of their particular century. Its opponents have referred to it -sharply as "a mischievous project," and they have denounced it as a -military menace that would have enabled the French (or Germans) to -use it as a means of invading England—the thought of which, in 1914, -caused one prominent English anti-tunneler, Admiral Sir Algernon de -Horsey, publicly to characterize as "unworthy of consideration" the -dissenting views of pro-tunnelers, whom he contemptuously referred -to as "those poor creatures who have no stomach for an hour's sea -passage, and who think retention of their dinners more important than -the safety of their country." Over the years, anti-tunnel forces have -used as ammunition an extraordinary variety of further arguments, which -have ranged from objections about probable customs difficulties at the -English and French ends of the tunnel to suspicions that a Channel -tunnel would make it easier for international Socialists to commingle -and conspire. - -Behind all these given reasons, no matter how elaborate or how special -they might be, there has always lurked something else, a consideration -more subtle, more elusive, more profound, and less answer able than -any specific objections to the construction of a Channel tunnel—the -consideration of England's traditional insular position, the feeling -that somehow, if England were to be connected by a tunnel with the -Continent, the peculiar meaning, to an Englishman, of being English -would never be quite the same again. It is this feeling, no doubt, that -in 1882 motivated an article on the tunnel, in so sober a publication -as _The Solicitors' Journal_, to express about it an uneasiness -bordering on alarm, on the ground that, if successful, the construction -of a tunnel would "effect a change in the natural geographical -condition of things." And it is no doubt something of the same feeling -that prompted Lord Randolph Churchill, during a speech attacking a bill -for a Channel tunnel before the House of Commons in 1889—the bill -was defeated, of course—to observe skillfully that "the reputation -of England has hitherto depended upon her being, as it were, _virgo -intacta_." - -If the proponents and promoters of the tunnel have never quite -succeeded in putting their project across in all the years, they have -never quite given up trying, either; and now, in a new strategic -era of nuclear rockets, a new era of transport in which air ferries -to the Continent carry cars as well as passengers, and a new era of -trade, marked by the emergence and successful growth of the European -Economic Community, or Common Market, the pro-tunnel forces have been -at it again, in what one of the leading pro-tunnelers has called -"a last glorious effort to get this thing through." This time they -have encountered what they consider to be the most encouraging kind -of progress in the entire history of the scheme. In April, 1960, an -organization called the Channel Tunnel Study Group announced, in -London, a new series of proposals for a Channel tunnel, based on a -number of recent elaborate studies on the subject. The proposals -called for twin parallel all-electric railway tunnels, either bored -or immersed, with trains that would carry passengers and transport, -in piggyback fashion, cars, buses, and trucks. The double tunnel, if -of the immersed kind, would be 26 miles long between portals. A bored -tunnel, as planned, would be 32 miles long and would be by far the -longest traffic tunnel of either the underwater or under-mountain -variety in the world. The longest continuous subaqueous traffic tunnel -in existence is the rail tunnel under the Mersey, connecting Liverpool -and Birkenhead, a distance of 2.2 miles; the longest rail tunnel -through a mountain is the Simplon Tunnel, 12.3 miles in length. The -Channel tunnel would run between the areas of Sangatte and Calais on -the French side, and between Ashford and Folkestone on the English -side. Trains would travel through it at an average speed of 65 miles -an hour, reaching 87 miles an hour in some places, and at rush hours -they would be capable of running 4,200 passengers and 1,800 vehicles on -flatcars every hour in each direction. While a true vehicular tunnel -could also be constructed, the obviously tremendous problems of keeping -it safely ventilated at present make this particular project, according -to the engineers, prohibitively expensive to build and maintain. The -train journey from London to Paris via the proposed tunnel would take -four hours and twenty minutes; the passenger trains would pass through -the tunnel in about thirty minutes. Passengers would pay 32 shillings, -or $4.48–$2.92 cheaper than the cost of a first-class passenger ticket -on the Dover-Calais sea-ferry—to ride through the tunnel; the cost -of accompanied small cars would be $16.48, a claimed 30 per cent less -than a comparable sea-ferry charge. The tunnel would take four to five -years to build, and the Study Group estimated that, including the rail -terminals at both ends, it would cost approximately $364,000,000. - -All that the Study Group, which represents British, French and American -commercial interests, needs to go ahead with the project and turn it -into a reality is—besides money, and the Study Group seems to be -confident that it can attract that—the approval of the British and -French Governments of the scheme. For all practical purposes, the -French Government never has had any objection to a fixed installation -linking both sides of the Channel, and as far as the official British -attitude is concerned, when the British Government announced, in -July, 1961, that it would seek full membership in the European Common -Market, most of the tunnel people felt sure that the forces of British -insularity which had hindered the development of a tunnel for nearly -a century at last had been dealt a blow to make them reel. But what -raised the pro-tunnelers' excitement to the greatest pitch of all was -the decision of the French and British Governments, last October, -to hold discussions on the problem of building either a bridge or a -tunnel. When these discussions got under way last November, the main -question before the negotiators was the economic practicality of such a -huge undertaking. - -Yet, with all the encouragement, few of the pro-tunnelers in England -seem willing to make a flat prediction that the British Government -will actively support the construction of a tunnel. They have been -disappointed too often. Then again, despite the generally high hopes -that this time the old strategic objections to the construction of a -tunnel have been pretty well forgotten, pro-tunnelers are well aware -that a number of Englishmen with vivid memories of 1940 are still -doubtful about the project. "The Channel saved us last time, even in -the age of the airplane, didn't it?" one English barrister said a while -ago, in talking of his feelings about building the Channel tunnel. The -tunnel project has the open enmity of Viscount Montgomery, who has -made repeated attacks on it and who in 1960 demanded, in a newspaper -interview, that before the Government took any stand on behalf of such -a project, "The British people as a whole should be consulted and -vote on the Channel tunnel as part of a General-Elections program." -And, to show that the spirit of the anti-tunnelers has not lost its -resilience, Major-General Sir Edward L. Spears, in the correspondence -columns of the London _Times_ in April of that same year, denounced -the latest Channel-tunnel scheme as "a plan which will not only cost -millions of public money, but will let loose on to our inadequate -roads eighteen hundred more vehicles an hour, each driven by a -right-of-the-road driver in a machine whose steering wheel is on the -left." - - - - -[Illustration: Two] - - -THE FIRST SCHEME for the construction of a tunnel beneath the English -Channel was put forward in France, in 1802, by a mining engineer named -Albert Mathieu, who that year displayed plans for such a work in -Paris, at the Palais du Luxembourg and the École Nationale Supérieure -des Mines. Mathieu's tunnel, divided into two lengths totaling about -eighteen and a half miles, was to be illuminated by oil lamps and -ventilated at intervals by chimneys projecting above the sea into the -open air, and its base was to be a paved way over which relays of -horses would gallop, pulling coachloads of passengers and mail between -France and England in a couple of hours or so of actual traveling time, -with changes of horses being provided at an artificial island to be -constructed in mid-Channel. Mathieu managed to have his project brought -to the attention of Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul, who was -sufficiently impressed with it to bring it to the attention of Charles -James Fox during a personal meeting of the two men during the Peace of -Amiens. Fox described it as "one of the great enterprises we can now -undertake together." But the project got no further than this talking -stage. In 1803, a Frenchman named de Mottray came up with another -proposal for creating a passage underneath the Channel. It consisted -of laying down sections of a long, submerged tube on top of the sea -bed between England and France, the sections being linked together in -such a way as to form a watertight tunnel. However, Mottray's project -petered out quickly, too, and the subject of an undersea connection -between the two countries lay dormant until 1833, when it attracted the -attention of a man named Aimé Thomé de Gamond, a twenty-six-year-old -French civil engineer and hydrographer of visionary inclinations. - -Thomé de Gamond was to turn into an incomparably zealous and persistent -projector of ways in which people could cross between England and -France without getting wet or seasick; he devoted himself to the -problem for no less than thirty-four years, and had no hesitation in -exposing himself to extraordinary physical dangers in the course of his -researches. Unlike the plans of his predecessors, Thomé de Gamond's -were based upon fairly systematic hydrographic or geological surveys -of the Channel area. In 1833 he made the first of these surveys by -taking marine soundings to establish a profile of the sea bottom in a -line between Calais and Dover; on the basis of this, he drew up, in -1834, a plan for a submerged iron tube that was to be laid down in -prefabricated sections on the bed of the Strait of Dover and then lined -with masonry, the irregular bottom of the sea meanwhile having been -prepared to receive the tube through the leveling action of a great -battering-ram and rake operated from the surface by boat. By 1835, -Thomé de Gamond modified this scheme by eliminating the prefabricated -tube in favor of a movable hydrographic shield that would slowly -advance across the Channel bottom, leaving a masonry tube behind it -as it progressed. But the rate of progress, he calculated, would be -slow; the work was to take thirty years to complete, or fifteen years -if work began on two shores simultaneously. Thomé de Gamond moved on -to schemes for other ways of crossing the Channel, and between 1835 -and 1836 he turned out, successively, detailed plans for five types -of cross-Channel bridges. They included a granite-and-steel bridge of -colossal proportions, and with arches "higher than the cupola of St. -Paul's, London," which was to be built between Ness Corner Point and -Calais; a flat-bottomed steam-driven concrete-and-stone ferryboat, -of such size as to constitute "a true floating island," which would -travel between two great piers each jutting out five miles into the -Channel between Ness Corner Point and Cap Blanc-Nez; and a massive -artificial isthmus of stone, which would stretch from Cap Gris-Nez -to Dover and block the neck of the English Channel except for three -transverse cuttings spanned by movable bridges, which Thomé de Gamond -allowed across his work for the passage of ships. Thomé de Gamond was -particularly fond of his isthmus scheme. He traveled to London and -there promoted it vigorously among interested Englishmen during the -Universal Exhibition of 1851, but he reluctantly abandoned it because -of objections to its high estimated cost of £33,600,000 and to what he -described as "the obstinate resistance of mariners, who objected to -their being obliged to ply their ships through the narrow channels." - -Such exasperating objections to joining England and France above water -sent Thomé de Gamond back to the idea of doing the job under the sea, -and between 1842 and 1855 he made various energetic explorations of -the Channel area in an attempt to determine the feasibility of driving -a tunnel through the rock formations under the Strait. Geological -conditions existing in the middle of the Strait were, up to that time, -almost entirely a matter of surmise, based on observations made on the -British and French sides of the Channel, and in the process of finding -out more about them, Thomé de Gamond decided to descend in person to -the bottom of the Channel to collect geological specimens. In 1855, -at the age of forty-eight, he had the hardihood to make a number of -such descents, unencumbered by diving equipment, in the middle of the -Strait. Naked except for wrappings that he wound about his head to -keep in place pads of buttered lint he had plastered over his ears, to -protect them from high water pressure, he would plunge to the bottom -of the Channel, weighted down by bags of flints and trailing a long -safety line attached to his body, and a red distress line attached -to his left arm, from a rowboat occupied also by a Channel pilot, a -young assistant, and his own daughter, who went along to keep watch -over him. On the deepest of these descents, at a point off Folkestone, -Thomé de Gamond, having put a spoonful of olive oil into his mouth as -a lubricant that would allow him to expel air from his lungs without -permitting water at high pressure to force its way in, dived down -weighted by four bags of flints weighing a total of 180 pounds. About -his waist he wore a belt of ten inflated pig's bladders, which were to -pull him rapidly to the surface after he had scooped up his geological -specimen from the Channel bed and released his ballast, and, using -this system, he actually touched bottom at a depth of between 99 and -108 feet. His ascent from this particular dive was not unremarkable, -either; in an account of it, he wrote that just after he had left the -bottom of the Channel with a sample of clay - - ... I was attacked by voracious fish, which seized me by the legs - and arms. One of them bit me on the chin, and would at the same time - have attacked my throat if it had not been preserved by a thick - handkerchief.... I was fortunate enough not to open my mouth, and - I reappeared on top of the water after being immersed fifty-two - seconds. My men saw one of the monsters which had assailed me, and - which did not leave me until I had reached the surface. They were - conger eels. - -Thomé de Gamond's geological observations, although they were certainly -sketchy by later standards, were enough to convince him of the -feasibility of a mined tunnel under the Channel, and in 1856 he drew -up plans for such a work. This was to be a stone affair containing a -double set of railroad tracks. It was to stretch twenty-one miles, from -Cap Gris-Nez to Eastwear Point, and from these places was to connect, -by more than nine miles at each end of sloping access tunnels, with -the French and British railway systems. The junctions of the sloping -access tunnels and the main tunnel itself were to be marked by wide -shafts, about three hundred feet deep, at the bottom of which travelers -would encounter the frontier stations of each nation. The line of the -main tunnel was to be marked above the surface by a series of twelve -small artificial islands made of stone. These were to be surmounted -with lighthouses and were to contain ventilating shafts connecting with -the tunnel. Thomé de Gamond prudently provided the ventilation shafts -in his plans with sea valves, so that in case of war between England -and France each nation would have the opportunity of flooding the -tunnel on short notice. The tunnel was designed to cross the northern -tip of the Varne, a narrow, submerged shelf that lies parallel to the -English coast about ten miles off Folkestone, and so close to the -surface that at low tide it is only about fifteen feet under water at -its highest point. Thomé de Gamond planned to raise the Varne above -water level, thus converting it into an artificial island, by building -it up with rocks and earth brought to the spot in ships. Through this -earth, engineers would dig a great shaft down to the level of the -tunnel, so that the horizontal mining of the tunnel as a whole could -be carried on from four working faces simultaneously, instead of only -two. The great shaft was also to serve as a means of ventilating the -tunnel and communicating with it from the outside, and around its apex -Thomé de Gamond planned, with a characteristically grand flourish, an -international port called the Étoile de Varne, which was to have four -outer quays and an interior harbor, as well as amenities such as living -quarters for personnel and a first-class lighthouse. As for the shaft -leading down to the railway tunnel, according to alternate versions of -Thomé de Gamond's plan, it was to be at least 350 feet—and possibly -as much as 984 feet—in diameter, and 147 feet deep; and, according to -a contemporary account in the Paris newspaper _La Patrie_, "an open -station [would be] formed as spacious as the court of the Louvre, where -travelers might halt to take air after running a quarter of an hour -under the bottom of the Strait." - -From the bottom of this deep station, trains might also ascend by -means of gently spiraling ramps to the surface of the Étoile de Varne, -_La Patrie_ reported. The newspaper went on to invite its readers to -contemplate the panorama at sea level: - - Imagine a train full of travelers, after having run for fifteen - minutes in the bowels of the earth through a splendidly lighted - tunnel, halting suddenly under the sky, and then ascending to the - quays of this island. The island, rising in mid-sea, is furnished - with solid constructions, spacious quays garnished with the ships of - all nations; some bound for the Baltic or the Mediterranean, others - arriving from America or India. In the distance to the North, her - silver cliffs extending to the North, reflected in the sun, is white - Albion, once separated from all the world, now become the British - Peninsula. To the South ... is the land of France.... Those white - sails spread in the midst of the Straits are the fishing vessels of - the two nations.... Those rapid trains which whistle at the bottom of - the subterranean station are from London or Paris in three or four - hours. - -In the spring of 1856, Thomé de Gamond obtained an audience with -Napoleon III and expounded his latest plan to him. The Emperor reacted -with interest and told the engineer that he would have a scientific -commission look into the matter "as far as our present state of science -allows." The commission found itself favorable to the idea of the work -in general but lacking a good deal of necessary technical information, -and it suggested that some sort of preliminary agreement between the -British and French Governments on the desirability of the tunnel ought -to be reached before a full technical survey was made. Encouraged by -the way things seemed to be going, Thomé de Gamond set about promoting -his scheme more energetically than ever. He obtained a promise of -collaboration from three of Britain's most eminent engineers—Robert -Stephenson, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and Joseph Locke—and in 1858 he -traveled to London to advance the cause of the tunnel among prominent -people and to promote it in the press. Leading journals were receptive -to the idea. An article in the _Illustrated London News_ referred to -the proposed tunnel as "this great line of junction," and said that -it would put an end to the commercial isolation that England was -being faced with by the creation on the Continent of a newly unified -railway system that was making it possible to ship goods from Central -to Western Europe without breaking bulk. The article added that the -creation of the tunnel - - ... would still preserve for this country for the future that maritime - isolation which formed its strength throughout the past; for the - situation of the tunnel beneath the bed of the sea would enable the - government on either coast, in case of war, as a means of defense, - to inundate it immediately.... According to the calculations of the - engineer, the tunnel might be completely filled with water in the - course of an hour, and afterwards three days would be required, with - the mutual consent of the two Governments, to draw off the water, and - reestablish the traffic. - -Thomé de Gamond's visit to England was climaxed by a couple of -interviews on the subject of the Channel tunnel that he obtained with -Prince Albert, who supported the idea with considerable enthusiasm and -even took up the matter in private with Queen Victoria. The Queen, -who was known to suffer dreadfully from seasickness, told Albert, -who relayed the message to Thomé de Gamond, "You may tell the French -engineer that if he can accomplish it, I will give him my blessing in -my own name and in the name of all the ladies of England." However, in -a discussion Thomé de Gamond had earlier had with Her Majesty's Prime -Minister, Lord Palmerston, who was present at one of the engineer's -interviews with Albert, the idea of the tunnel was not so well -received. The engineer found Palmerston "rather close" on the subject. -"What! You pretend to ask us to contribute to a work the object of -which is to shorten a distance which we find already too short!" -Thomé de Gamond quoted him as exclaiming when the tunnel project was -mentioned. And, according to an account by the engineer, when Albert, -in the presence of both men, spoke favorably of the benefits to England -of a passage under the Channel, Lord Palmerston "without losing that -perfectly courteous tone which was habitual with him" remarked to the -Prince Consort, "You would think quite differently if you had been born -on this island." - -While Thomé de Gamond was occupied with his submarine-crossing -projects, other people were producing their own particular tunnel -schemes. Most of them seem to have been for submerged tubes, either -laid down directly on the sea bed or raised above its irregularities by -vertical columns to form a sort of underwater elevated railway. Perhaps -the most ornamental of these various plans was drawn up by a Frenchman -named Hector Horeau, in 1851. It called for a prefabricated iron tube -containing a railway to be laid across the Channel bed along such -judiciously inclined planes as to allow his carriages passage through -them without their having to be drawn by smoke-bellowing locomotives—a -suffocatingly real problem that most early Channel-tunnel designers, -including, apparently, Thomé de Gamond, pretty well ignored. The slope -given to Horeau's underground railway was to enable the carriages to -glide down under the Channel from one shoreline with such wonderful -momentum as to bring them to a point not far from the other, the -carriages being towed the rest of the way up by cables attached to -steam winches operated from outside the tunnel exit. The tunnel -itself would be lighted by gas flames and, in daytime, by thick glass -skylights that would admit natural light filtering down through the -sea. The line of the tube was to be marked, across the surface of the -Channel, by great floating conical structures resembling pennanted -pavilions in some medieval tapestry. The pavilions were to be held in -place by strong cables anchored to the Channel bottom; they were also -to contain marine warning beacons. This project never got under the -ground. - -In 1858, an attempt to assassinate Napoleon III brought France into the -Italian war against Austria, and when word spread in France that the -assassin's bombs had been made in Birmingham, a chill developed between -the French and British Governments. This led to a wave of fear in -England that another Napoleon might try a cross-Channel invasion. All -this froze out Thomé de Gamond's tunnel-promoting for several years. -He did not try again until 1867, when he exhibited a set of revised -plans for his Varne tunnel at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. In -doing so he concluded that he had pushed the cause of the tunnel about -to the limit of his personal powers. Thirty-five years of work devoted -to the problem had cost him a moderate personal fortune, and he was -obliged to note in presenting his plan that "the work must now be -undertaken by collective minds well versed in the physiology of rocks -and the workings of subterranean deposits." After that, Thomé de Gamond -retired into the background, squeezed out, it may be, by other tunnel -promoters. In 1875, an article in the London _Times_ that mentioned his -name in passing reported that he was "living in humble circumstances, -his daughter supporting him by giving lessons on the piano." He died in -the following year. - -Although Thomé de Gamond's revised plan of 1867 came to nothing in -itself, it did cause renewed talk about a Channel tunnel. The new -spirit of free trade was favorable to it among Europeans, and everybody -was being greatly impressed with reports of the striking progress on -various great European engineering projects of the time that promised -closer communication between nations—the successful cutting of the -Isthmus of Suez, the near completion of the 8.1-mile-long Mount Cenis -rail tunnel, and the opening, only a few years previously, of the -9.3-mile-long St. Gotthard Tunnel, for example. Hardly any great -natural physical barriers between neighboring nations seemed beyond the -ability of the great nineteenth-century engineers to bridge or breach, -and to many people it appeared logical enough that the barrier of the -Dover Strait should have its place on the engineers' list of conquests. -In this generally propitious atmosphere, an Englishman named William -Low took up where Thomé de Gamond left off. Shortly after the Universal -Exhibition, Low came up with a Channel tunnel scheme based principally -upon his own considerable experience as an engineer in charge of coal -mines in Wales. Low proposed the creation of a pair of twin tunnels, -each containing a single railway track, and interconnected at intervals -by short cross-passages. The idea was a technically striking one, for -it aimed at making the tunnels, in effect, self-ventilating by making -use of the action of a train entering a tunnel to push air in front -of it and draw fresh air in behind itself. According to Low's scheme, -this sort of piston action, repeated on a big scale by the constant -passage of trains bound in opposite directions in the two tunnels, was -supposed to keep air moving along each of the tunnels and between them -through the cross-passages in such a way as to allow for its steady -replenishment through the length of the tunnels. With modifications, -Low's concept of a double self-ventilating tunnel forms the basis for -the plan most seriously advanced by the Channel Tunnel Study Group in -1960. - -After showing his plans to Thomé de Gamond, who approved of them, Low -obtained the collaboration of two other Victorian engineers—Sir John -Hawkshaw, who in 1865 and 1866 had had a number of test borings made -by a geologist named Hartsink Day in the bed of the Channel in the -areas between St. Margaret's Bay, just east of Dover, and Sangatte, -just north-east of Calais, and had become convinced that a Channel -tunnel was a practical possibility in geological terms; and Sir James -Brunlees, an engineer who had helped build the Suez Canal. In 1867, -an Anglo-French committee of Channel-tunnel promoters submitted a -scheme for a Channel tunnel based on Low's plan to a commission of -engineers under Napoleon III, and the promoters asked for an official -concession to build the tunnel. The members of the commission were -unanimous in regarding the scheme as a workable one, although they -balked at an accompanying request of the promoters that the British -and French Governments each guarantee interest on a million sterling, -which would be raised privately, to help get the project under way, and -took no action. But apart from the question of money the promoters were -encouraged. In 1870 they persuaded the French Government officially to -ask the British Government what support it would be willing to give to -the proposed construction of a Channel railway tunnel. Consideration of -the question in Whitehall got sidetracked for a while by the outbreak -of the Franco-Prussian war in the same year, but in 1872, after further -diplomatic enquiries by the French Government, the British Government -eventually replied that it found no objection "in principle" to a -Channel tunnel, provided it was not asked to put up money or guarantee -of any kind in connection with it and provided that ownership of the -tunnel would not be a perpetual private monopoly. In the same year, -a Channel Tunnel Company was chartered in England, with Lord Richard -Grosvenor, chairman of the London, Chatham & Dover Railway, at its -head, and with Hawkshaw, Low, and Brunlees as its engineers. The -tunnel envisioned by the company would stretch from Dover to Sangatte, -and its cost, including thirty-three miles of railway that would -connect on the English side with the London, Chatham & Dover and the -South-Eastern Railways, and on the French side with the Chemin de Fer -du Nord, would be £10,000,000. Three years later, the English company -sought and obtained from Parliament temporary powers to buy up private -land at St. Margaret's Bay, in Kent, for the purpose of going ahead -with experimental tunneling work there. At the same time, a newly -formed French Channel Tunnel Company backed by the House of Rothschild -and headed by an engineer named Michel Chevalier obtained by act of -the French legislature permission from the French Government to start -work on a tunnel from the French side at an undetermined point between -Boulogne and Calais, and a concession to operate the French section -of the tunnel for ninety-nine years. The _cahier des charges_ of the -French tunnel bill dealt in considerable detail with the terms under -which the completed tunnel was to be run, down to providing a full -table of tariffs for the under-Channel railroad. Thus, a first-class -passenger riding through the tunnel in an enclosed carriage furnished -with windows would be charged fifty centimes per kilometre. Freight -rates were established for such categories as furniture, silks, wine, -oysters, fresh fish, oxen, cows, pigs, goats, and horse-drawn carriages -with or without passengers inside. - -The greatest uncertainty facing the two companies, now that they had -the power to start digging toward each other's working sites, consisted -of their lack of foreknowledge of geological obstacles they might -encounter in the rock masses lying between the two shores at the neck -of the Channel. However, the companies' engineers had substantial -reasons for believing that, in general, the region and stratum into -which they planned to take the tunnel were peculiarly suited to their -purpose. Their belief was based on a rough reconstruction—a far more -detailed reconstruction is available nowadays, of course—of various -geological events occurring in the area before there ever was a -Channel. A hundred million years ago, in the Upper Cretaceous period -of the Mesozoic era, a great part of southern England, which had been -connected at its easterly end with the Continental land mass, was -inundated, along with much of Western Europe, by the ancient Southern -Sea. As it lay submerged, this sea-washed land accumulated on its -surface, over a period of ten million years, layers of white or whitish -mud about nine hundred feet thick and composed principally of the -microscopic skeletons of plankton and tiny shells. Eventually the mud -converted itself into rock. Then, for another forty million years, at -just the point where the neck of the Dover Strait now is, very gentle -earth movements raised the level of this rock to form a bar-shaped -island some forty miles long. By Eocene times this Wealden Island, -stretching westward across the Calais-Dover area, actually seems to -have been the only bit of solid ground standing out in a seascape of -a Western Europe inundated by the Eocene sea. When most of France and -southern England reappeared above the surface, in Miocene times, this -island welded them together; later, in the ice age, the Channel isthmus -disappeared and emerged again four times with the rise and fall of the -sea caused by the alternate thawing and refreezing of the northern -icecap. When each sequence of the ice age ended, the land bridge -remained, high and dry as ever, and it was over this isthmus that -paleolithic man shambled across from the Continent, in the trail of -rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, giant boars, and other great beasts whose -fossilized bones have been found in the Wealden area. - -Encroaching seas made a channel through the isthmus and cut the Bronze -Age descendants of this breed of men off from the Continent about six -thousand years ago. Then fierce tidal currents coursing between the -North Sea and the Atlantic widened the breach still further until, as -recently as four thousand years ago (or only about a couple of thousand -years before Caesar's legions invaded Britain by boat), the sea wore -away the rock of the isthmus to approximately the present width of -the Strait, leaving exposed high at each side the eroded rock walls, -formerly the whitish mudbank of Cretaceous times—now the white chalk -cliffs of the Dover and Calais areas. Providentially for the later -purposes of Channel tunnelers, however, the seas that divided England -from the Continent also left behind them a thin remnant of the old land -connection in the form of certain chalk layers that still stretched -in gentle folds across the bottom of the Strait, and it was through -this area of remaining chalk that the Victorian engineers planned to -drive their tunnel headings. Even more providentially, they had the -opportunity of extending their headings under the Channel through a -substratum of chalk almost ideal for tunneling purposes, known as the -Lower Chalk. Unlike the two layers of cretaceous rock that lie above -it—the white Upper Chalk and the whitish Middle Chalk, both of which -are flint-laden, heavily fissured, and water-bearing, and consequently -almost impossible to tunnel in for any distance—the Lower Chalk (it -is grayish in color) is virtually flint-free and nearly impermeable -to water, especially in the lower parts of the stratum, where it is -mixed with clay; at the same time it is stable, generally free of -fissures, and easy to work. From the coastline between Folkestone and -South Foreland, north-east of Dover, where its upper level is visible -in the cliffs, the Lower Chalk dips gently down into the Strait in a -north-easterly direction and disappears under an outcropping Middle -Chalk, and emerges again on the French side between Calais and Cap -Blanc-Nez. Given this knowledge and their knowledge of the state of -Lower Chalk beds on land areas, the Victorian engineers were confident -that the ribbon of Lower Chalk extending under the Strait would turn -out to be a continuous one. To put this view to a further test, the -French Channel Tunnel Company, in 1875, commissioned a team of eminent -geologists and hydrographers to make a more detailed survey of the -area than had yet been attempted. In 1875 and 1876 the surveyors made -7,700 soundings and took 3,267 geological samples from the bed of the -Strait and concluded from their studies that, except for a couple of -localities near each shoreline, which a tunnel could avoid, the Lower -Chalk indeed showed every sign of stretching without interruption or -fault from shore to shore. However, when these studies were completed, -Lord Grosvenor's Channel Tunnel Company did not find itself in a -position to do much about them. The company was having trouble raising -money, and its temporary power to acquire land at St. Margaret's -Bay for experimental workings had lapsed without the promoters ever -having used it. William Low, who had left the company in 1873 after -disagreements with Hawkshaw on technical matters—Low had come to -believe, for one thing, that the terrain around St. Margaret's Bay was -unsuitable as a starting place for a channel tunnel—had become the -chief engineering consultant of a rival Channel-tunnel outfit that -called itself the Anglo-French Submarine Railway Company. But the -Anglo-French Submarine Railway Company wasn't getting anywhere, either. -It remained for a third English company, headed by a railway magnate -named Sir Edward Watkin, to push the Channel-tunnel scheme into its -next phase, which turned out to be the most tumultuous one in all its -history. - -[Illustration: A PLEDGED M.P. - - M.P.'s BRIDE. "_Oh! William dear—if you are—a Liberal—do bring in a - Bill—next Session—for that Underground Tunnel!!_" - - This cartoon depicting the horrors of the Channel crossing originally - appeared in _Punch_ in 1869. In 1961, 92 years later, _Punch_ found it - as timely as ever.] - -[Illustration: - - Aimé Thomé de Gamond - - THE GREAT TUNNEL SCHEMERS - - Sir Edward Watkin] - -[Illustration: - - THE GREAT ANTI-TUNNELER - - Lt.-Gen. Sir Garnet Wolseley, 1882] - -[Illustration: - - Sir Garnet Wolseley's fears of a French invasion through the tunnel as - seen in the United States in 1882 by _Puck_.] - -[Illustration: - - Hector Horeau's tunnel scheme of 1851 involved laying down a - prefabricated submerged tube on the Channel bottom. The pavilions are - ventilating stations.] - -[Illustration: - - Thomé de Gamond's plan in 1856 for a Channel tunnel by way of the - Varne, which would be built up into an international harbor.] - -[Illustration: - - The Channel tunnel workings at Shakespeare Cliff in 1882. The entrance - is by the smokestack near the twin portals, which are unconnected with - the tunnel workings.] - -[Illustration: - - Diagram of the tunnel workings at Shakespeare Cliff in 1882. The - Admiralty Pier at Dover is in the distance.] - -[Illustration: - - TUNNEL PARTIES IN THE 1880s - - Everybody who was anybody went down into the tunnel to inspect the new - undersea road to France. - - 1. Guests preparing for the descent. - - 2. Being lowered 163 feet below the surface to the gallery. - - 3. Champagne party in the tunnel. - - 4. Inspecting the Beaumont tunneling machine as it bores toward France. - - 5. Tunnel oratory at champagne lunch at Dover.] - -[Illustration: An early Napoleonic vision of the invasion of England] - -[Illustration: by air, sea, and a Channel tunnel.] - -[Illustration: - - Sir Edward Watkin, at the sluice-gates, vanquishes the French invaders - marching on England through the tunnel. A London newspaper cartoon at - the time of the great tunnel controversy.] - -[Illustration: - - THREE SOLUTIONS TO THE INVASION PROBLEM - - How to have a tunnel and still keep England safe from invasion is a - problem that has attracted the attention of artists since the eighties. - - The _Illustrated London News_, 1882, shows how, at - the first sign of invasion, the tunnel could be bombarded from the - Admiralty Pier at Dover, from the Dover fortifications, and from - positions offshore. - - Viaduct for the French tunnel entrance proposed in 1906. - At signs of French intentions to invade, the British fleet would sail - up and blow this viaduct to smithereens, thus blocking the tunnel from - the French end. - - David Langdon in _Paris Match_, 1960, suggests another way of - handling the invasion problem.] - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: PROPOSED METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING A SUBMERGED TUBE UNDER -THE CHANNEL] - -[Illustration: - - The illustration shows the proposed laying of a "cut and cover" - prefabricated tunnel on the Channel bottom with the aid of a DeLong - self-elevating construction platform.] - -[Illustration: - - Artist's impression of the boring of the double Channel tunnel, with - its extra service tunnel and cross-passages, as proposed by the - Channel Tunnel Study Group in 1960.] - - - - -[Illustration: Three] - - -SIR EDWARD WATKIN was a vociferously successful promoter from the -Midlands. The son of a Manchester cotton merchant, Watkin had passed up -a chance at the family business in favor of railways in the early days -of the age of steam, and it is a measure of his generally acknowledged -shrewdness at railway promotion that in his mid-twenties, having become -secretary of the Trent Valley Railway, he negotiated its sale to the -London North Western Railway at a profit of £438,000. Now in his early -sixties, Watkin was chairman of three British railway companies, the -Manchester, Sheffield Lincolnshire Railway, the Metropolitan (London) -Railway, and the South-Eastern Railway—the last-named being a company -whose line ran from London to Dover via Folkestone—and one of his big -current schemes was the formation of a through route under a single -management—his own, naturally—from Manchester and the north to -Dover. It was while he was busily promoting this scheme that Watkin -caught the Channel-tunnel fever. He realized that part of the land -the South-Eastern Railway owned along its line between Folkestone and -Dover lay happily accessible to the ribbon of Lower Chalk that dipped -into the sea in the direction of Dover and stretched under the bed of -the Strait, and it wasn't long before he was conjuring up visions of a -great system in which his projected Manchester-Dover line, instead of -stopping at the Channel shoreline, would carry on under the Strait to -the Continent. - -One of Sir Edward Watkin's first steps toward determining the technical -feasibility of constructing a tunnel was to call in, sometime in -the mid-seventies, William Low, whose own tunnel company had quite -fallen apart, for engineering consultation. Watkin decided to aim -for a twin tunnel based on Low's idea, which would have its starting -point in the area west of Dover and east of Folkestone, and he put -his own engineers to work on the job. In 1880, the engineers sank a -seventy-four-foot shaft by the South-Eastern Railway line at Abbots -Cliff, about midway between Folkestone and Dover, and began driving a -horizontal pilot gallery seven feet in diameter along the Lower Chalk -bed in the direction of the sea off Dover. By the early part of the -following year, the experimental heading extended about half a mile -underground. His engineers having satisfied themselves that the Lower -Chalk was lending itself as well as expected to being tunneled, Sir -Edward went ahead and formed the Submarine Continental Railway Company, -capitalized at £250,000 and closely controlled by the South-Eastern -Railway Company, to take over the existing tunnel workings and to -continue them on a larger scale, with the aim of constructing a Channel -tunnel connecting with the South-Eastern's coastal rail line. At the -same time, he reached an understanding with the French Channel Tunnel -Company on co-ordination of English and French operations; he also -engineered through Parliament—he was an M.P. himself, and that helped -things a bit—a bill giving the South-Eastern power to carry out the -compulsory purchase of certain coastal land in the general direction -taken by the existing heading. - -Then Sir Edward's engineers sank a second shaft, farther to the east -but in alignment with the first heading, 160 feet below a level -stretch of ground by the South-Eastern Railway line at Shakespeare -Cliff, just west of Dover, 120 feet below high water, and began boring -a new seven-foot pilot tunnel that dipped down with the Lower Chalk -bed leading into the Channel. This second boring, like the first, was -carried out with the use of a tunneling machine especially designed -for the purpose by Colonel Frederick Beaumont, an engineer who had had -a hand in the construction of the Dover fortifications. The Beaumont -tunneling machine, a prototype of some of the most powerful tunneling -machines in use nowadays, was run by compressed air piped in from the -outside, and the discharge of this air from the machine as it worked -also served as a way of keeping the gallery ventilated. The cutting of -the rock was done by a total of fourteen steel planetary cutters set in -two revolving arms at the head of the machine; with each turn of the -borer a thin paring of chalk 5/16 of an inch thick was shorn away from -the working face, the spoil being passed by conveyor belt to the back -of the machine and dumped into carts or skips that were pushed by hand -along the length of the gallery on narrow-gauge rails. The machine made -one and a half to two revolutions a minute, and Sir Edward estimated -for his stockholders that with simultaneous tunneling with the use of -similar equipment from the French shore—the French Tunnel Company had -already sunk a 280-foot shaft of its own at Sangatte and was preparing -to drive a gallery toward England—the Channel bottom would be pierced -from shore to shore by a continuous single pilot tunnel, twenty-two -miles long, in three and a half years. Once this was done, according -to Sir Edward's plans, the seven-foot gallery was to be enlarged by -special cutting machinery to a fourteen-foot diameter, and a double -tunnel, thickly lined with concrete and connected by cross-passages, -constructed. (Four miles of access tunnel were to be added on the -French, and possibly on the English, side, too.) The completed tunnel -was to be lighted throughout by electric light—a novelty already being -tried out in the pilot tunnel by the well-known electrical engineer -C. W. Siemens—and the trains that ran through it between France and -Britain were to be hauled by locomotives designed by Colonel Beaumont. -Instead of being run by smoke-producing coal, the locomotives were to -be propelled by compressed air carried behind the engine in tanks, -and, like the Beaumont tunneling machine, the engine was supposed to -keep the tunnel ventilated by giving out fresh air as it went along. -(A lot of air was to be released in the tunnel in the course of a -day; a tentative schedule called for one train to traverse it in one -direction or another every five minutes or so for twenty hours out of -the twenty-four.) - -Trains coming through the tunnel from France were to emerge into -the daylight and the ordinary open air of England either from a -four-mile-long access tunnel connected to the South-Eastern's railway -line at Abbots Cliff or—this was a favored alternative plan of Sir -Edward's—at Shakespeare Cliff via a station to be constructed in a -great square excavated a hundred and sixty feet deep in the ground, -which would be covered over with glass, lighted by electric light, and -equipped "with large waiting rooms and refreshment rooms." From the -abyss of this submerged station, trains arriving from the Continent -were to be raised, an entire train at a time, to the level of the -existing South-Eastern line by a giant hydraulic lift. (Actually, -constructing an elevator capable of raising such an enormous load would -not seem as unlikely a feat in the eighties as it might to many people -now; Victorian engineers were expert in the use of hydraulic power -for ship locks and all sorts of other devices, and, in fact, hydraulic -power was so commonly used that the London of half a century ago had -perhaps eight hundred miles of hydraulic piping laid below the streets -to work industrial presses, motors, and most of the cranes on the -Thames docks.) - -As the experimental work progressed, Sir Edward Watkin saw to it -that all the splendid details about the Channel-tunnel scheme -were constantly brought to the attention of the South-Eastern's -shareholders, the press, and the public. Sir Edward, besides -being a nineteenth-century railway king, was also something of a -twentieth-century public-relations operator. He was a firm believer in -the beneficial effects of giving big dinners, a pioneer in the art of -organizing big junkets, and an adept at getting plenty of newspaper -space. An energetic lobbyist in Parliament for all sorts of causes, -not excluding his own commercial projects, he was known as a habitual -conferrer of friendly little gestures upon important people in and out -of government, and his kindness is said to have gone so far at one -time that he provided Mr. Gladstone with the convenience of a private -railway branch line that went right to the statesman's country home. - -The driving of the Channel-tunnel pilot gallery at Shakespeare Cliff -offered Sir Edward a handy opportunity for exercising his gifts in -the field of public relations, and he took full advantage of it. Week -after week, as the boring of the tunnel progressed, he invited large -groups of influential people, as many as eighty at a time, including -politicians and statesmen, editors, reporters, and artists, members -of great families, well-known financiers and businessmen from Britain -and abroad, and members of the clergy and the military establishment -to be his guests on a trip by special train from London to Dover at -Shakespeare Cliff. There, at the Submarine Continental Railway Company -workings, the visitors were taken down into the tunnel to inspect the -creation of the new experimental highway to the Continent. A typical -enough descriptive paragraph in the press concerning one of these -visits (on this occasion a group of prominent Frenchmen were the guests -of Sir Edward) is contained in a contemporary report in the _Times_: - - The visitors were lowered six at a time in an iron "skip" down the - shaft into the tunnel. At the bottom of this shaft, 163 feet below - the surface of the ground, the mouth of the tunnel was reached, and - the visitors took their seats on small tramcars which were drawn by - workmen. So evenly has the boring machine done its work that one - seemed to be looking along a great tube with a slightly downward - set, and as the glowing electric lamps, placed alternately on either - side of the way, showed fainter and fainter in the far distance, the - tunnel, for anything one could tell from appearances, might have had - its outlet in France. - -Sir Edward Watkin, in a speech he made at a Submarine Continental -Railway Company stockholders' meeting shortly after such a visit (the -main parts of the speech were duly paraphrased in the press), found the -effect of the electric light (operated on something called the Swan -system) in the tunnel to be just as striking as the _Times_ reporter -had—only brighter. - - He thought the visit might be regarded as a remarkable one. Their - colleague, Dr. Siemens, lighted up the tunnel with the Swan light, and - it was certainly a beautiful sight to see a cavern, as it were, under - the bottom of the sea made in places as brilliant as daylight. - -While on their way by tramcar to view the working of Colonel Beaumont's -boring machine at the far end of the tunnel, visitors stopped after a -certain distance to enjoy another experience—a champagne party held -in a chamber cut in the side of the tunnel. A contemporary artist's -sketch in the _Illustrated London News_ records the sight of a group of -visitors clustered around a bottle-laden table at one of these way side -halts. Mustachioed and bearded, and wearing Sherlock Holmes deerstalker -caps and dust jackets, they are shown, in tableaued dignity, standing -about within a solidly timbered cavelike area with champagne glasses -in their hands; and for all the Victorian pipe-trouser formality of -their posture there is no doubt that the subjects are having a good -time. After such a refreshing pause, the visitors would be helped on -the tramcars again and escorted on to see the boring machine cutting -through the Lower Chalk and to admire the generally dry appearance of -the tunnel, and after that they would be taken back to the surface and -given a splendid lunch either in a marquee set up near the entrance to -the shaft or at the Lord Warden Hotel, in Dover, where more champagne -would be served, along with other wines and brandies, more toasts to -the Queen's health proposed, and speeches made on the present and -future marvels of the tunnel, the forwardness of its backers, and the -new era in international relations that the whole project promised. -These lunches were also convenient occasions for the speakers to -pooh-pooh the claims of the rival tunnel scheme of Lord Richard -Grosvenor's Channel Tunnel Company, which was still being put forward, -although entirely on paper, and to make announcements of miscellaneous -items of news about progress in the Lower Chalk. - -Thus, at one of these lunches at the Lord Warden Hotel held in the -third week of February, 1882, Mr. Myles Fenton, the general manager -of the South-Eastern Railway, took occasion to announce to a large -party of visitors from London that boring of the gallery had now -reached a distance of eleven hundred yards, or nearly two-thirds of -a mile, in the direction of the end of the great Admiralty Pier at -Dover. According to an account in the _Times_, Mr. Fenton read to the -interested gathering a telegram he had received from Sir Edward, who -was unable to be present, but who by wire "expressed the hope that by -Easter Week a locomotive compressed air engine would be running in the -tunnel, of which it was expected the first mile would by that time have -been made. (Cheers.)" - -Sometimes these lunches were held down in the tunnel itself, and -general conditions down there were such that even ladies attended them, -on special occasions, as a contemporary magazine account of a visit -paid to the gallery by a number of engineers with their families makes -clear. - - The visitors were conducted twenty at a time to the end on a sort of - trolley or benches on wheels drawn by a couple of men. In the centre - of the tunnel a kind of saloon, decorated with flowers and evergreens, - was arranged, and, on a large table, glasses and biscuits, etc., were - spread for the inevitable luncheon. There was no infiltration of water - in any part. In the places where several small fissures and slight - oozings had appeared during the boring operations, a shield in sheet - iron had been applied against the wall by the engineer, following all - the circumference of the gallery and making it completely watertight. - There they were as in a drawing-room, and the ladies having descended - in all the glories of silks and lace and feathers were astonished to - find themselves as immaculate on their return as at the beginning - of their trip. The atmosphere in the tunnel was not less pure, but - even fresher than outside, thanks to the compressed air machine - which, having acted on the excavator at the beginning of the cutting, - released its cooled air in the centre of the tunnel. - -With the widespread talk of champagne under the sea, potted plants -flourishing under the electric lights, and bracing breezes blowing -within the Lower Chalk, going down from London to attend one of Sir -Edward's tunnel parties seems to have become one of the fashionable -things to do in English society in the early part of 1882. By -the beginning of spring, visitors taken down into the tunnel and -entertained by Sir Edward included such eminent figures as the Lord -Mayor of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Prince and -Princess of Wales. To judge by this stage of affairs, the boring of the -tunnel was going on under the most agreeable of auspices. - -Behind all the sociability and the stream of publicity engendered -in the press by the visits of well-known people to the tunnel, the -situation was not quite so promising. While the physical boring was -going ahead smoothly enough in the Lower Chalk, the promotion of the -tunnel as a full-scale project was encountering growing resistance -from within the upper crust of The Establishment. The fact seems to be -that the British Government had never felt altogether easy about the -idea of the Channel tunnel from the start, and although it had never -formally expressed any misgivings about the scheme as a whole, it had -always been careful not to associate itself with the enterprise, and -its attitude toward its progress generally had been one of reluctant -acquiescence. Whatever disquiet people in government felt about the -tunnel project appears to have been expressed in three general -ways—first, in the introduction of caveats of a military nature; -second, in proposals to delay the progress of the scheme on other than -military grounds; and third, in a general, nameless suspicion of the -whole idea. Such reservations had been evident even in 1875, when the -Channel Tunnel Company applied to Parliament for powers to carry out -experimental work at St. Margaret's Bay. - -To exemplify the first kind of reservation put forward, the Board -of Trade, the governmental department under whose surveillance such -commercial schemes came, made a point of insisting that for defense -purposes the Government must retain absolute power to "erect and -maintain such [military] works at the English mouth of the Tunnel as -they may deem expedient," and in case of actual or threatened war to -close the tunnel down. As for the tendency of governmental people -to find other grounds for objection in the project, this could be -exemplified by the delaying action of the Secretary to the Treasury, -when in 1875 it looked as though Parliament were about to take action -on the Channel-tunnel bill. In a memorandum to the Foreign Office, the -Secretary sought to have the tunnel bill laid aside at the last moment -of its consideration before Parliament so that the answers to all sorts -of important jurisdictional questions could be sought—for example, "If -a crime were committed in the Tunnel, by what authority would it be -cognizable?"[1] And as for the third, unnamed kind of objection, Queen -Victoria, who, with her late husband (Prince Albert died in 1861), had -once been so enthusiastic about the idea of a Channel tunnel, simply -changed her mind about the entire business; in February of 1875, the -Queen wrote Disraeli, without elaborating, that "she hopes that the -Government will do nothing to encourage the proposed tunnel under the -Channel which she thinks very objectionable." - -Ever since 1875, all these official doubts and misgivings had continued -to lurk in the background of the Government's dealings with the -Channel-tunnel promoters—especially military misgivings about the -scheme. Apart from putting down the usual bloody insurrections among -native populations while she went about the business of maintaining -her colonial territories, Britain was at peace with the world. As far -as her military relations with the Continent stood, the threats of -Napoleon I to invade the island had not been forgotten, and even in -the reign of Napoleon III there had been occasional alarms about an -invasion, but the country's physical separation from the Continent -tended to make the military tensions existing over there seem rather -comfortingly remote. Britain's home defenses were left on a pretty -easygoing basis, the country's reliance on resistance to armed attack -being placed, in traditional fashion, in the power of the Royal Navy -to control her seas—meaning, for all practical purposes, its ability -to control the Channel. With the Navy and the Channel to protect her -shores, Britain in the seventies and eighties got along at home with -a professional army of only sixty thousand men, as against a standing -army in France of perhaps three-quarters of a million. Seasickness or -no seasickness, the Channel was considered to be a convenient manpower -and tax-money saver. The advantages of the Channel to Victorian -England were perhaps most eloquently expressed by Mr. Gladstone in -the course of an article of his in the _Edinburgh Review_ in 1870 on -England's relationship to the military and political turmoil existing -on the Continent. "Happy England!" he wrote in a brief panegyric -on the Channel. "Happy ... that the wise dispensation of Providence -has cut her off, by that streak of silver sea, which passengers so -often and so justly execrate ... partly from the dangers, absolutely -from the temptations, which attend upon the local neighborhood -of the Continental nations.... Maritime supremacy has become the -proud—perhaps the indefectible—inheritance of England." And Mr. -Gladstone went on, after dwelling upon one of his favorite themes, the -evils of standing armies and the miserable burden of conscription, to -suggest that Englishmen didn't realize just how grateful they ought to -be for the Channel: - - Where the Almighty grants exceptional and peculiar bounties, He - sometimes permits by way of counterpoise an insensibility to their - value. Were there but a slight upward heaving of the crust of the - earth between France and Great Britain, and were dry land thus to be - substituted for a few leagues of sea, then indeed we should begin to - know what we had lost. - -These remarks of Mr. Gladstone's on the Channel appear to have made a -powerful impression on opinion in upper-class England; for many years -after their publication his partly Shakespearean phrase, "the streak -of silver sea"—or a variation of it, "the silver streak"—remained -as a standard term in the vocabulary of Victorian patriotism. Not -surprisingly, considering his views in 1870, the attitude of Mr. -Gladstone in 1881 and 1882, during his term as Prime Minister, toward -the plan of Sir Edward Watkin to undermine those Straits the statesman -had so extolled was an equivocal one. - -Indeed, quite a number of people in and around Whitehall had -considerably stronger reservations about the Channel-tunnel project -than Mr. Gladstone did. These misgivings had to do with fears that a -completed tunnel under the Channel might form a breach in England's -traditional defense system, and in June of 1881 they first came to -public notice in the form of an editorial in the _Times_. Discussing -the Channel-tunnel project, the _Times_, while conceding that "As an -improvement in locomotion, and as a relief to the tender stomachs -of passengers who dread seasickness, the design is excellent," went -on to observe that "from a national [and military] point of view it -must not the less be received with caution." And the paper asked, -"Shall we be as well off and as safe with it as we now are without -it? Will it be possible for us so to guard the English end of the -passage that it can never fall into any other hands than our own?" -The _Times_ frankly doubted it, and questioned whether, if the tunnel -were built, "a force of some thousands of men secretly concentrated -in a [French] Channel port and suddenly landed on the coast of Kent" -might not be able by surprise to seize the English end of the tunnel -and use it as a bridgehead for a general invasion of England. At the -very least, the paper warned, the construction of the tunnel meant -that "a design for the invasion of England and a general plan of the -campaign will be subjects on which every cadet in a German military -school will be invited to display his powers," and it suggested that -in the circumstances the Channel had best be left untunneled. "Nature -is on our side at present," the _Times_ concluded gravely, "and she -will continue so if we will only suffer her. The silver streak is our -safety." The author of a letter to the _Times_ printed in the same -issue declared that the tunnel, if constructed, could be seized by the -French from within as easily as from without, and that "in three hours -a cavalry force might be sent through to seize the approaches at the -English end." - -To all this Sir Edward Watkin replied easily that the tunnel, when -it was finished, could at any time be rendered unusable from the -British end by "a pound of dynamite or a keg of gunpowder." However, -the negative attitude of a journal as influential as the _Times_ was -a setback for the project. As a result, the Government increased -its caution about the tunnel. When, at the end of 1881, Sir Edward -drew up a private bill for presentation during the coming year to -Parliament that would formally grant the South-Eastern full authority -to buy further coastal lands in the Shakespeare Cliff area and to -complete the construction of and to maintain a Channel tunnel (Lord -Richard Grosvenor and the proprietors of the London, Chatham & Dover -Railway came up with a similar bill on behalf of the Channel Tunnel -Company), the Board of Trade held departmental hearings on the rival -schemes, and at these hearings further attention was turned to the -question of the military security of the tunnel in the event of its -being attacked. At these proceedings, Sir Edward, who appeared for the -purpose of testifying to the civilizing magnificence of his project, -was put somewhat on the defensive by questions about the desirability -of the tunnel from a military point of view. He found himself in -the disconcerting position of being obliged to show not so much the -practicability of building a Channel tunnel as the practicability of -disabling or destroying it. However, making the most of the situation, -he declared that fortifying the English end of the tunnel, and knocking -it out of commission in case of hostile action by another power, was -a simple enough matter to be accomplished in any number of ways—by -flooding it, by filling it with steam, by bringing it under the gunfire -of the Dover fortifications, by exploding electrically operated mines -laid in it, or choking it with shingle dumped in from the outside. -(There was even mention, at the hearings, of a proposal to pour -"boiling petroleum" down upon invaders.) Getting into the spirit of -the thing in spite of himself, Sir Edward told the examining committee -confidently, "I will give you the choice of blowing up, drowning, -scalding, closing up, suffocating and other means of destroying our -enemies.... You may touch a button at the Horse Guards and blow the -whole thing to pieces." - -Notwithstanding Sir Edward's categorical assurances, the wisdom of -constructing the tunnel came under vigorous attack at the hearings from -a formidably high official military source—from Lieutenant-General Sir -Garnet Wolseley, the Adjutant General of the British Army. A veteran -of the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny who was considered to be an -expert on the art of surprise attack—his routing of such foes as -King Koffee in the first Ashanti War of 1873-74, as well as the great -promptitude with which he was said to have "restored the situation" in -the Zulu War, made him a well-known figure to the British public—Sir -Garnet Wolseley had a dual reputation as an imperialist general and -a soldier with advanced ideas on reform of the supply system of the -British Army. In fact, his enthusiasm for efficiency was such that -the phrase "All Sir Garnet" was commonly used in the Army as a way of -saying "all correct." The actor George Grossmith made himself up as -Wolseley to sing the part of "a modern Major-General" in performances -in the eighties of Gilbert and Sullivan's _The Pirates of Penzance_. -Sir Garnet later became Lord Wolseley and Commander-in-Chief of the -British Army. Sir Garnet Wolseley's opinions of the tunnel project -were very strong ones. In a long memorandum he submitted to the Board -of Trade committee examining the tunnel project, he described the -Channel as "a great wet ditch" for the protection of England, the like -of which, he said, no Continental power, if it possessed one instead -of a land frontier, would "cast recklessly away, by allowing it to be -tunnelled under." And he denounced the construction of a Channel tunnel -on the ground that it would be certain to create what he termed "a -constant inducement to the unscrupulous foreigner to make war upon -us." In agitated language, General Wolseley invoked the opinion of the -late Duke of Wellington that England could be invaded successfully, -and he reiterated the fear previously expressed by the _Times_ that -the English end of the tunnel might be seized from the outside—before -any of its defenders had a chance of setting in motion the mechanisms -for blocking it up—by a hostile force landing nearby on British soil, -whereupon it could readily be converted into a bridgehead for a general -invasion of the country. He also declared that "the works at our end -of the tunnel may be surprised by men sent through the tunnel itself, -without landing a man upon our shores." General Wolseley went on to -show just how the deed could be done: - - A couple of thousand armed men might easily come through the tunnel in - a train at night, avoiding all suspicion by being dressed as ordinary - passengers, and the first thing we should know of it would be by - finding the fort at our end of the tunnel, together with its telegraph - office, and all the electrical arrangements, wires, batteries, etc., - intended for the destruction of the tunnel, in the hands of an enemy. - We know that ... trains could be safely sent through the tunnel every - five minutes, and do the entire distance from the station at Calais - to that at Dover in less than half an hour. Twenty thousand infantry - could thus be easily despatched in 20 trains and allowing ... 12 - minutes interval between each train, that force could be poured into - Dover in four hours.... The invasion of England could not be attempted - by 5,000 men, but half that number, ably led by a daring, dashing - young commander might, I feel, some dark night, easily make themselves - masters of the works at our end of the tunnel, and then England would - be at the mercy of the invader. - -General Wolseley conceded that an attack from within the tunnel -itself would be difficult if even a hundred riflemen at the English -end had previously been alerted to the presence of the attackers, but -he doubted that the vigilance of the defenders could always maintain -itself at the necessary pitch. And he put it to the committee: "Since -the day when David secured an entrance by surprise or treachery into -Jerusalem through a tunnel under its walls, how often have places -similarly fallen? and, I may add, will again similarly fall?" General -Wolseley also found highly questionable the efficacy of the various -measures proposed for the protection of the tunnel. He declared that -"a hundred accidents" could easily render such measures useless. Thus, -for example, he found fault with proposals to lay electrically operated -mines inside the tunnel ("A galvanic battery is easily put out of -order; something may be wrong with it just when it is required ... the -gunpowder may be damp"); proposals to admit the sea into the tunnel by -explosion ("an uncertain means of defense"); and proposals to flood -it by sluice-gates at the English end ("These water conduits [might] -become choked or unserviceable when required" and the "drains rendered -useless by treachery"). Then, after pointing out all the frailties of -the contemplated defenses, General Wolseley went on to assert that -the construction of the tunnel would necessitate, at very least, the -conversion of Dover at enormous expense into a first-class fortress and -that it could very well make necessary the introduction into England on -a permanent basis of compulsory military service to meet the increased -threat to Britain's national security. - - Surely [Sir Garnet concluded] John Bull will not endanger his - birth-right, his property, in fact all that man can hold most dear - ... simply in order that men and women may cross to and fro between - England and France without running the risk of seasickness. - -Sir Garnet reinforced the arguments against the tunnel in personal -testimony before the committee. In this testimony he emphasized, among -other things, his conviction that once an enemy got a foothold at -Dover, England would find herself utterly unable "short of the direct -interposition of God Almighty"—an eventuality that Sir Garnet did not -appear to count on very heavily—to raise an army capable of resisting -the invaders. And the inevitable result of such a default, Sir Garnet -told the committee, would be that England "would then cease to exist as -a nation." - -Sir Garnet's fears for Britain were not shared in a memorandum -submitted to the committee by another high Army officer, -Lieutenant-General Sir John Adye, the Surveyor-General of the Ordnance. -Sir John gave his opinion that "a General in France, having the -intention of invading England, would not, in my opinion, count on the -tunnel as adding to his resources." He maintained that the argument -that the English end of the tunnel might be taken from within could -be safely dismissed, as invading troops could be destroyed as they -arrived "by means of a small force, with a gun or two, at the mouth -of the tunnel." As for the possibility of a hostile force landing on -British soil to seize the mouth of the tunnel, he questioned whether -"an enemy, having successfully invaded England, [should] turn aside to -capture a very doubtful line of communication, when the main object -of his efforts was straight before him." General Adye thought that -the invaders "would probably feel a much stronger disposition to march -straight on London and finish the campaign." - -However, the frontal attack on the project by General Wolseley was -not a factor to be discounted by any means. Rallying to it in typical -fashion, Sir Edward Watkin attempted to stifle the spread of patriotic -fears about the tunnel by giving more large lunches at the Lord Warden -Hotel at Dover, and he tried to keep all prospects bright by inviting -more and more prominent people down into the tunnel at Shakespeare -Cliff to marvel at the workings and to refresh themselves with -champagne under the electric lights. By mid-February, his guests in the -tunnel included no less than sixty Members of Parliament whose support -he hoped to obtain for his pending Tunnel Bill, and on one occasion he -even succeeded in having the Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone himself, -come down into the tunnel and be shown around. Sir Edward assured -his stockholders that what he called "alarmist views" concerning the -construction of the tunnel were without any real foundation. Addressing -an extraordinary general meeting of the Submarine Continental Railway -Company, Sir Edward quoted from an alleged reaction of Count von Moltke -on the matter: "The invasion of England through the proposed tunnel I -consider impossible. You might as well talk of invading her through -that door"—pointing to the entrance to his library. Sir Edward brushed -the arguments of military men aside as a collection of "hobgoblin -arguments" by "men who would prefer to see England remain an island for -ever, forgetting that steam had abolished islands, just as telegraphy -had abolished isolated thought." He insisted that the tunnel promoters -were engaged in a project at once idealistic and practical, and bravely -declared their motto to be identical to that of the South-Eastern -Railway Company—"Onwards." - -By way of countering Sir Garnet Wolseley's invocation of the opinion -of the Duke of Wellington on the dangers of invasion, the promoters -put it about that the Duke of Wellington in his day had strongly -opposed the construction of a railway between Portsmouth and London -on the ground that it would dangerously facilitate the movement of a -French army upon London. They asserted that one unnamed but very high -English military figure had even expressed alarm, at the time of the -Universal Exhibition of 1851, that the English Cabinet did not insist -on the Queen's retiring to Osborne, her country place on the Isle of -Wight, because of the large numbers of foreigners at the Exhibition, -including three thousand men of the French National Guard, who were -allowed to parade the streets of London in uniform, wearing their side -arms. And pro-tunnelers recalled in derisive fashion Lord Palmerston's -denunciation of the Suez Canal project as "a madcap scheme which would -be the ruin of our Indian Empire, were it possible of construction, -and which would spell disaster to those who had the temerity to assert -it." Colonel Beaumont, as an engineer and military man, too, wrote an -article challenging the validity of General Wolseley's conclusions -about the tunnel. Colonel Beaumont maintained that Dover might already -be regarded as "a first-class fortress, quite safe from any _coup de -main_ from without." Concerning an attack by bodies of infantry or -cavalry through the tunnel, he declared, "They cannot come by train; -as, irrespective of any suspicions on the part of the booking clerks, -special train arrangements would have to be made to carry [them]; they -cannot march, as they would be run over by the trains, running, as they -would do, at intervals of ten minutes, or oftener, without cessation, -day or night." Colonel Beaumont also outlined, in his article, a number -of precautionary measures that could be taken to secure the safety -of the English end of the tunnel. They included a system of pumping -coal smoke instead of compressed air from a ventilating shaft into the -tunnel, and also the provision of a system of iron water mains that -would connect the sea with the ventilating shaft and make it possible -for the officer of the guard, in case of invasion, to flood the tunnel -by turning a stopcock. In accordance with these proposed measures, -Sir Edward, early in 1882, attempted to forestall further military -criticism of the Channel-tunnel scheme by having such a ventilating -shaft sunk at the eastern end of Shakespeare Cliff, about a mile from -the main shaft, and having a start made on another horizontal gallery -bored from the foot of the new shaft in the direction of the main pilot -tunnel under the sea. The new gallery was four feet instead of seven -feet in diameter—the smaller aperture in itself being an additional -measure of protection, Sir Edward explained, in that intruders would -find it impossible to walk along the ventilation shaft in an upright -position or in any numbers. A friendly article on the tunnel in the -_Illustrated London News_ at the beginning of March noted significantly -that not only the entrance at the English end—either at Abbots Cliff -or at Sir Edward's proposed glassed-in railway station at Shakespeare -Cliff—would be under the fire of the eighty-ton turret guns installed -on the Admiralty Pier, but that "it is to be observed how completely -[the entrance to the new ventilating shaft] is commanded both from -the sea and from the Pier, and also from the guns of the fortress." -The _Illustrated London News_ obligingly showed the principle of -the thing by running a large two-page-wide engraving depicting, in -handsomely apocalyptic style, the hypothetical destruction of the -entire tunnel workings and, presumably, the invaders inside them, amid -great ballooning clouds of smoke from gun batteries everywhere—from -the end of the Admiralty Pier, from points within the Dover land -fortifications, and from the cannonading broadsides of British naval -men-of-war standing offshore. The fate of invaders from floodwaters -was depicted in a more sensational London publication, the _Penny -Illustrated Paper_, which published an engraving a foot and a half -long and a foot high illustrating "Sir Edward Watkin's remedy for the -invasion scare: Drowning the French Pharaoh in the Channel Tunnel." -The engraving showed a cutaway section of the tunnel under the Channel -near the English end and, rising upward at the left, a staired chamber -of rock equipped with sluice-gates and set in the white cliffs. In -this chamber, two figures in top hats and frock coats are standing and -gazing down on the tunnel, which is filled with French infantry led by -plumed, helmeted officers on horseback. One of the figures in the cliff -chamber, evidently meant to represent Sir Edward Watkin, is in the act -of calmly operating a turncock that has loosed, through the sluices, a -dreadful flood cascading down into the tunnel upon the invaders, who -are turning to flee in panic. - -Vivid as these scenes of destruction were, they had little effect on -the anti-tunnel forces. Already, in February, another attack on the -tunnel scheme had appeared in the literary magazine _The Nineteenth -Century_, signed by Lord Dunsany. The article, repeating the claim -that the tunnel project was a menace to Britain's security, referred -to the capacity of the Dover fortress system to defend itself against -a modern invading fleet as "contemptible." Lord Dunsany wrote that he -had gone down to Dover to examine the famous fortress and had found -that with the exception of the two recently installed turret guns on -the Admiralty Pier, the guns "generally speaking were of an obsolete -pattern—popguns, in fact." And he asserted that when he had remarked -on the relatively modern appearance of one of the larger guns in a -particularly commanding position of the fortress, "I was told by an -artilleryman that there were orders against firing it, as it would -bring down the brickwork of the rampart." - -Soon after this, an anonymous article in the _Army and Navy Gazette_ -declared that "The Island has been invaded again and again" and it -reminded the _Gazette's_ readers that "The present constitution of -the country depends on the last successful invasion by a Dutch Prince -with Dutch troops, and the overthrow of the King, by an army largely -composed of foreigners." The article took Lieutenant-General Sir John -Adye severely to task for having found the tunnel a good security risk, -and it even went so far afield in its criticism of him as to find fault -with the General for what it called his "deliberate, vehement, and -long-continued resistance to the introduction of the breech-loading -system in our artillery that placed us at the fag-end of all the world, -when we ought to have been first." - -Then, in March, 1882, _The Nineteenth Century_ carried an article -against the tunnel by Professor Goldwin Smith, who wrote that the -protection of the Channel, by exempting England from the necessity of -keeping a large standing army, had preserved the country from military -despotism and enabled her to move steadily in the path of political -progress. The Channel, Professor Smith wrote, in the past had preserved -England from the Armada and from the army of Napoleon I; in the -sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had preserved the Reformation; -and in the eighteenth century it had preserved her from the spread -of revolutionary fevers and from subjection to foreign tyranny. Now, -he said, it was the barrier between Britain's industrial people and -military conscription, and he went on, in an echo of Mr. Gladstone's -earlier remarks in the _Edinburgh Review_, to declare of the Channel -that "A convulsion of nature which should dry it up would be almost -as fatal to England as one which should ruin the dykes would be to -Holland." - -Under these circumstances of increasing controversy, the attitude of -the Board of Trade toward the tunnel project became one of further -reserve. In February, the Board informed the War Office that the -military question of the tunnel had assumed such magnitude that a -decision on it should be taken not on a departmental level but on the -higher governmental policy level, and it suggested that the War Office -start its own investigations on the military aspect of the matter. - -Commenting on the prevailing French attitude toward British fears about -the tunnel project, the Paris correspondent of the London _Times_ -observed mildly that "the political uneasiness which the scheme -has raised on the other side does not exist here.... No Frenchman, -of course, regards it as jeopardizing national security. Frenchmen -see in it a greater facility for visiting the United Kingdom, and -for relieving the monotony of Swiss tours by a trip to the Scotch -highlands." - -In satirical fashion, a paragraph in _Punch_ undertook to summarize the -reaction in another European country: - - Bogie! The Italian Government are so struck by the alarm exhibited - by Sir Garnet Wolseley at the prospect of a Channel Tunnel, that - they have closed the Mount Cenis and St. Gotthard Tunnels, and left - travellers to the mountain diligences. Their reason for doing this - is the fact that Napoleon really crossed the Alps, while he only - threatened to invade England. - -As for reactions in Germany, the British chargé d'affaires in Dresden -reported in a dispatch to the Foreign Office that he had questioned -the Chief of Staff of the 12th (Saxon) Corps—"an officer of high -attainments"—on his attitude toward the possible invasion of England -through the Channel tunnel, or through sudden seizure of the English -end from the outside. - -He wrote that General von Holleben, the officer in question, had -observed, in connection with the practicability of landing a -Continental force and taking the British end, that although such an -operation was not impossible, "that [it] would succeed in the face of -our military and moral resources, railways and telegraphs, he should -believe when he saw it happen." - - General von Holleben then remarked that the idea of moving an - Army-Corps 25 miles beneath the sea was one which he did not quite - take in. The distance was a heavy day's march; halts must be made; and - the column of troops would be from eight to ten miles long. He was - unable to realize all this off hand, and he did not know but what we - were talking of a chimoera. - - I observed that no one appeared to have asked what would happen to the - air of the tunnel if bodies of 20,000 or even 10,000 men were to move - through at once. The General said that this atmospheric difficulty was - new to him, and it did not sound very soluble. - -But the fears of the War Office were not stilled by such observations -as these. On February 23, the War Office announced that it was -appointing a Channel Tunnel Defense Committee, headed by Major-General -Sir Archibald Alison, the chief of British Army Intelligence, -to collect and examine in detail scientific evidence on "the -practicability of closing effectually a submarine railway tunnel" in -case of actual or apprehended war. - -The Board of Trade, in the meantime, did its best to hold Sir Edward -Watkin and his project off at arm's length. On March 6, 1882, the -secretary of the Board of Trade, which had been keeping an eye on -newspaper accounts of the progress of the tunnel, wrote to remind Sir -Edward of the vital fact that all the foreshore of the United Kingdom -below high-water mark at Dover was "_prima facie_ the property of the -Crown and under the management of the Board of Trade," and that while -the department did not wish to impede progress it distinctly wished to -give notice that the Government "hold themselves free to use any powers -at their disposal in such a matter as Parliament may decide, or as the -general interest of the country may seem to them to require." In other -words, the Board told the Submarine Continental Railway Company that it -could not drive its tunnel toward France without trespassing on Crown -property extending all the way from high-water mark to the three-mile -limit of British jurisdiction—the traditionally accepted limit of the -carrying power of cannon. - -The claim of the Crown to the foreshore in this case was, however, one -that Sir Edward Watkin disputed. He claimed that through an arrangement -with a landowner near Shakespeare Cliff, and by certain purchases -of land from the Archbishop of Canterbury as head of the Church of -England, the tunnel proprietors had come into possession of ancient -manorial rights, originally granted by the Crown itself, that permitted -them to exploit the foreshore at Shakespeare Cliff as they saw fit, -including the right to tunnel under it. Sir Edward had claimed that he -was having made an extensive legal search of the title in question, -which would take a little while. - -But the notification from the Board of Trade was an ominous development -for Sir Edward and his scheme; and even more ominous signs were to -follow. During March, anti-tunneling forces in Britain circulated a -great petition among prominent Englishmen against the scheme, for -presentation to Parliament. The petition, recording the conviction of -the signatories that a Channel tunnel "would involve this country -in military dangers and liabilities from which, as an island, it has -hitherto been happily free," was published in the April issue of _The -Nineteenth Century_, and it was signed not only by military people -but by many of the most diversely eminent literary, scientific, and -ecclesiastical men of the day—including Robert Browning, Alfred, Lord -Tennyson, Herbert Spencer, Professor T. H. Huxley, Cardinals Newman -and Manning, and the Archbishop of York—as well as a great cloud of -names from the nobility and the landed gentry. In an eloquent article -accompanying the petition, the editor of _The Nineteenth Century_, -James Knowles, implicitly added the name of William Shakespeare to the -list of anti-tunnel signatories by invoking the John of Gaunt speech -from _Richard II_: - - This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, - This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, - This other Eden, demi-Paradise, - This fortress built by Nature for herself - Against infection and the hand of war, - This happy breed of men, this little world, - This precious stone set in the silver sea, - Which serves it in the office of a wall - Or as a moat defensive to a house, - Against the envy of less happier lands.... - -The editor went on to declare, more prosaically, that "To hang the -safety of England at some most critical instant upon the correct -working of a tap, or of any mechanical contrivance, is quite beyond the -faith of this generation of Englishmen." - -Almost at the instant that the heavy blow of the petition in _The -Nineteenth Century_ fell upon the tunnel promoters, the Board of Trade -sent down a real thunderbolt upon their heads. On April 1, the Board of -Trade wrote Sir Edward Watkin that, whatever might be the title to the -foreshore at Shakespeare Cliff, there was no doubt as to the title of -the Crown under the bed of the sea below low-water mark and within the -three-mile limit. It informed him that according to the department's -calculations, based on a tracing of the tunnel route previously -obtained from the Submarine Continental Railway Company, the boring -of the tunnel now must necessarily be close to the point of low-water -mark. And, as a consequence, the Board of Trade instructed the company -that, pending the outcome of the Government's deliberations on the -military security of the tunnel, it must suspend its boring operations -forthwith and give the Government assurances to that effect. - -[Footnote 1: An Anglo-French Joint Commission formed to set up -agreements on the jurisdiction of the two countries over the Channel -tunnel in 1876 actually drew up a protocol for a channel-tunnel treaty -between England and France. The Commission agreed to the jurisdiction -of each government ceasing at a point to be marked in the center of the -tunnel and it recommended that the tunnel be regulated by a specially -appointed international body.] - - - - -[Illustration: Four] - - -All at once, it seems, the entire British press was in an uproar of -criticism against the Channel tunnel and its unfortunate promoters. The -_Sunday Times_ pretty well expressed a common reaction of newspapers -and periodicals to the latest developments when it said, in an -editorial, "We confess to experiencing a feeling of relief on hearing -of the interdiction of [Sir Edward Watkin's] progress" in his "working -day and night to put an end to that insular position which has in past -times more than once proved our sheet anchor of safety. We sincerely -hope that Sir E. Watkin's project will shortly receive its final _coup -de grâce_. No doubt," it added presciently, "he will not yield without -a resolute struggle." - -Some hard things were said in the press about the great tunnel -promoter. He was accused in various publications of "adroit and -unscrupulous lobbying" and of dispensing "profuse hospitality ... -persistent and continuous" in pursuit of his scheme. In the May issue -of _The Nineteenth Century_, which contained a further number of -attacks on the tunnel, Lord Bury reported bitterly on the softening -effect that Sir Edward Watkin's public-relations technique had had on -a friend of his. Asked if he had signed the great petition against -the tunnel, the friend was said to have replied, "No, I have not; I am -strongly against the construction of the Tunnel, and I told Watkin so. -But he gave a party of us, the other day, an excellent luncheon, and -was very civil in showing us everything; so I should not like to do an -unhandsome thing to him by signing the protest." - -An editorialist in a periodical called _All the Year Round_, -which formerly had been put out by Charles Dickens, wrote of the -"extraordinary vigor" with which Sir Edward was pushing his tunnel. -The editorialist dwelt in satirical fashion on the manner in which -prominent persons were "perpetually being whisked down to Dover by -special trains, conducted into vaults in the chalk, made amiable -with lunch and sparkling wines, and whisked back in return specials -to dilate to their friends (and, incidentally, to the public) on the -peculiar charm of Pommery and Greno consumed in a chamber excavated -far under the sea." The writer found Sir Garnet Wolseley's argument, -that the English end of the tunnel could be seized, "on reflection to -be perfectly feasible." He asked, "Can anyone suppose that if such -a government as that which was formed by the Communists were by any -chance ... to rule France, the danger that the temptation to make such -a grand coup as the conquest and plunder of England would be too much -for them would not be a very real and very present one?" And he wound -up by warning "that French troops might checkmate our fleet by simply -walking underneath it, and ... take a revenge for Waterloo, the remote -possibility of which must make every Englishman shudder." - -The probable future effects of the Channel tunnel upon the nervous -systems of Englishmen were the subject of intense speculation in -most of the press, as a matter of fact. Almost without exception, -the prognosis of this hypothetical nervous condition was grave. If, -nowadays, the capacity to maintain extraordinary spiritual fortitude -under conditions of national emergency has come to be regarded almost -as a basic characteristic of the British people, it is a characteristic -that the Victorian British press seemed not to be aware of. Almost -unanimously, the press warned that part of the price of constructing -a tunnel would be the occurrence of wild periodic alarms among the -population. "Perpetual panics and increased military expenditure are -the natural result of such a change as that which will convert us from -an island into a peninsula," an editorial in _John Bull_ declared. The -London _Daily News_ demanded to know whether "anyone who is in the -least acquainted with English character and history" could deny the -country's susceptibility to periodic panics. The _Daily News_ dwelt -apprehensively on the inevitable result of panics arising out of the -construction of a Channel tunnel: - - We should be constantly beginning expensive and elaborate schemes for - strengthening the defences according to the fashionable idea of the - day.... They would be about half carried out by the time the next - panic occurred, and then they would be obsolete.... Now it would be - elaborate fortifications at Dover itself; now a great chain of forts - to hem it in from inland; now the old scheme of the fortification of - London; now the establishment of forts out at sea over the tunnel.... - Is it worth while to run the chance...? - -The most diverse arguments were advanced in the press against the -construction of the tunnel. In the May issue of _The Nineteenth -Century_, Major-General Sir E. Hamley raised the question of whether -the French, invading Britain by train through the tunnel, might not -seize some distinguished English people and carry the captives along -on the engine as hostages, so that however thoroughly the officer in -charge of the defensive apparatus at the English end were alerted to -their presence, "still he might well be expected to pause if suddenly -certified that he would be destroying, along with the enemy in the -Tunnel, some highly important Englishmen." Another writer, referring to -the responsibility and possibly also to the character of the officer -in charge of the tunnel defenses, observed thoughtfully that "the -commandant of Dover would carry the key of England in his pocket." -Still another commentator wondered if responsibility for making a -decision to blow up the tunnel might not be too much even for an -English Prime Minister: - - The Premier might think himself justified in destroying twenty - millions of property ... but also, he might not. He might be an - undecided man, or a man expecting defeat by the Opposition, or a man - paralyzed by the knowledge that the tunnel was full of innocent people - whom his order would condemn to instant death, in a form which is at - once most painful and most appalling to the imagination. They would - all be drowned in darkness. The responsibility would be overwhelming - for an individual, and a Cabinet, if dispersed, takes hours to bring - together. - -In his article in _The Nineteenth Century_ Lord Bury, going under -the assumption that a Prime Minister in a period of gravest national -emergency would indeed be able to haul his Cabinet colleagues and -military advisers together in reasonable time to consider having the -tunnel blown up, asked his readers to conjure up the painful scene at -Downing Street: - - Imagine him for a moment sitting in consultation. His military - advisers tell him that the decisive moment has come. "I think, - gentlemen," says the minister, turning to his colleagues, "that we are - all agreed—the Tunnel must be immediately destroyed. Fire the mine!" - "There is one other point," says the officer, "on which I request - instructions—at what time am I to execute the order?" "At once, sir; - telegraph at once, and in five minutes the blasting charge can be - fired." "But," persists the officer, "trains laden with non-combatants - are at this moment in the Tunnel. They enter continuously at twenty - minutes' intervals; there are never less than four trains, two each - way, in the Tunnel at the same time; each train contains some three - hundred persons ... I could not destroy twelve hundred non-combatants - without very special instructions." - -And Lord Bury asked, "What would any minister, under such -circumstances, do?" - -As for the proposed defensive measure of flooding the tunnel in case -of invasion, General Sir Lintorn Simmons, writing in the same issue of -_The Nineteenth Century_, considered it to be a dubious one at best, -since, he observed, "it is not to be believed that a great country like -France, with the engineering talent she possesses, could not find the -means" of pumping all the flood waters out again. - -An assertion by Dr. Siemens, the electric-lighting expert, that the -tunnel could easily be rendered unusable to invaders if its British -defenders would pump carbonic-acid gas into it to asphyxiate the -intruders, was similarly challenged, in the correspondence columns -of the _Times_, by a scientific colleague of his, Dr. John Tyndall. -Dr. Tyndall offered to wager Dr. Siemens that the latter could in six -hours devise countermeasures that would enable troops to pass unscathed -through the tunnel, gas or no gas. Dr. Tyndall illustrated his point -by describing an experiment he said he had made on the very day of his -letter, while coming down home from London by train, on a part of the -South-Eastern line where the speed was thirty miles an hour: - - I took out my watch and determined how long I could hold my breath - without inhalation. By emptying my lungs very thoroughly, and then - charging them very fully, I brought the time up to nearly a minute - and a half. In this interval I might have been urged through more - than half a mile of carbonic-acid gas with no injury and with little - inconvenience to myself. - -Dr. Tyndall concluded, firmly, "The problem of supplying fresh air -to persons surrounded by an irrespirable atmosphere has been already -solved by Mr. Fleuss and others." - -Then there were even more disturbing objections. Could the defenders -at the English end always be relied on as absolutely loyal Englishmen? -_The Field_, without naming any names, wrote of "proof that in the -United Kingdom itself ... there are numbers of daring and reckless -persons" who, "to gain their sinister ends ... would not hesitate -to sacrifice the independence of the country." Frankly, the paper -feared possible acts of treachery in the tunnel by "a handful of -unprincipled desperadoes." And the _Spectator_, visualizing the thing -in more detail, suggested that its readers "consider ... the danger of -treachery ... the rush on the tunnel being made by Irish Republicans in -league with the French, while the wires of the telegraph were cut, and -all swift communications between Dover and London suddenly suspended." -Taking all the risks of the tunnel into account, the _Spectator_ said -it could not bring itself to believe that "even in this age, with its -mania for rapid riding and comfortable locomotion, such a project will -be tolerated." The _Sunday Times_, for its part, pointed out that, as -things stood, "the silver streak is a greater bar to the movements of -Nihilists [and] Internationalists ... than is generally believed." -But, it added, "with several trains a day between Paris and London, -we should have an amount of fraternising between the discontented -denizens of the great cities of both countries, which would yield very -unsatisfactory results on this side of the Channel." - -Meetings and debates to discuss the tunnel menace were held all over -England, and even at a meeting of so progressive an organization as -the Balloon Society of Great Britain, which was held in the lecture -room of the Royal Aquarium at Westminster, the subject was discussed -with "some warmth of feeling ... on both sides." There was a wide -circulation of sensational pamphlets, written in pseudohistorical -style, that purported to chronicle the sudden downfall of England at -the end of the nineteenth century through the existence of a Channel -tunnel—Dover taken, the garrison butchered, the English end of the -tunnel incessantly vomiting forth armed men, London invaded, and -England enslaved—all of this in a few hours' time. - -In contrast to these manifold cries of alarm among the English, it -seems never to have occurred to anybody in France at the time seriously -to suggest that if a tunnel were to be constructed, a hostile English -force, supported by an English navy in control of the Channel sea, -might suddenly seize the French entrance by surprise and use it as a -bridgehead for a general invasion of France. A few French commentators -did, however, remind the anti-tunnel forces in England that while the -English had set hostile foot on French soil some two or three times in -as many centuries—not to mention her having kept physical control -over the port of Calais for over two hundred years following the -Battle of Crécy—English soil had remained untouched by France. Most -of the French newspapers appeared to be unable to fathom the cause of -the whole tunnel commotion, which was generally put down to English -eccentricity. Several French journals, surveying all the fulminations -on the other side of the Channel, even took an attitude toward the -English of a certain detached sympathy. One of the more interesting -French commentaries on the uproar in England appeared in the _Revue -des Deux Mondes_. In this article, the author expressed some doubt -that British military men who denounced the dangers of the tunnel were -really convinced of the reality of those dangers. For them to do so, he -suggested, one would have to presuppose, on one side of the Channel, a -"France again a conqueror with, at her head, a man gifted with ... an -incredible depth in crime; a secret, an almost incredible diligence in -preparation as in execution," and, on the other side, "a governor of -Dover who would be an idiot or a traitor, a War Minister who would not -possess the brain of a bird, a Foreign Minister who would allow himself -to be deceived in doltish fashion." How could the French possibly -assemble perhaps a thousand railway carriages in England without -arousing the suspicions of British Intelligence? How could the vanguard -of the French invaders get through the tunnel with all their required -ammunition, horses, and supplies, and get them all unloaded in a few -minutes—would this vanguard sally forth without biscuits? The author -found no solution to these particular problems. Instead, he devoted -himself to the larger issue: - - The day the inauguration of the Submarine Tunnel will be celebrated, - England will no longer be an island, and that is a stupendous - event in the history of an island people.... Islanders have always - considered themselves the favorites of Providence, which has - undertaken to provide for their security and independence.... They - congratulate themselves on their separation from the rest of the world - by natural frontiers over which nobody can squabble. They feel that - they hold their destiny in their own hands, and that the effect of the - follies and crimes of others could not reach them.... Their character - is affected by this. Like Great Britain, every Englishman is an island - where it is not easy to land. - -And the article asked, wonderingly, "What would an England that was not -an island be?" - -The deliberations of the scientific investigating committee appointed -by the War Office and presided over by Sir Archibald Alison lasted from -the latter part of February until the middle of May. In the committee's -report of its findings to the War Office, the complexity and solemn -nature of the questions laid before it were indicated by their -mere classification and subclassification. Thus, the contingencies -for rendering a Channel tunnel absolutely useless to an enemy were -considered under the headings of: - - I. Surprise from Within - II. Attack from Without - -And the committee reported that it had considered measures to secure -the tunnel against (I) under such subcategories as: - - 1. Fortifications - 2. Closure or temporary obstructions - 3. Explosion by mines or charges - 4. Flooding - a. Temporary - b. Permanent - -After reviewing the situation in great detail, and from every aspect, -the committee suggested a long list of precautionary measures that, -it said, it would be necessary to use, singly or in combination, to -protect and seal off the tunnel against any enemy attempts to invade -England directly through the tunnel or by seizing the English end -from the outside and using it as a bridgehead for invasion. The list -included these recommendations: - -The mouth of the tunnel should be protected by "a portcullis or other -defensible barrier." - -A trap bridge should be set in connection with this portcullis. - -Means should be provided for closing off the ventilation, and for -"discharging irrespirable gases or vapors into the tunnel." - -Arrangements should be made for rapidly discharging loads of shingle -into the land portion of the tunnel, shutting it off. - -The land portion of the tunnel should be thoroughly mined with -explosives capable of being fired by remote control exercised not only -from within the central fort at Dover but also from more distant points -inland, so that even if the protective fortress fell to the enemy, the -tunnel still could be permanently destroyed. - -In addition, a truck loaded with explosives and equipped with a time -fuse should be kept ready by the entrance, so that it could be sent -coasting down into the tunnel for some distance, there to explode -automatically. - -Arrangements should be made for temporarily flooding the tunnel by -means of culverts operated by sluice valves. ("If by chance the sluice -valves should not act, Measure XVIII could be resorted to, or the -tunnel could be blocked by one or more of the means ... mentioned in -Measures VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII.") - -The tunnel should emerge inland, out of firing range from the sea. And -it was imperative that it emerge under the guns and "in the immediate -vicinity of a first-class fortress, in the modern acceptation of the -term, a fortress which could only be reduced after a protracted siege -both by land and sea." - -And so on. - -Even after drawing up all these elaborate precautions for closing the -tunnel from the English end, the Channel Tunnel Defense Committee was -left with some nagging doubts about their adequacy. In a concluding -paragraph of its report, the committee pointed out that "it must always -be borne in mind that, in dealing with physical agencies, an amount of -uncertainty exists," and that it was "impossible to eliminate human -fallibility." As a consequence, the members stated cautiously, "it -would be presumptuous to place absolute reliance upon even the most -comprehensive and complete arrangements." - -The committee also agreed, almost as an afterthought, that the Channel -tunnel proposed by Sir Edward Watkin could not be sanctioned in the -form envisaged, on the grounds that it did not meet the committee's -conditions for emerging inland, out of firing range from the sea, and -in the immediate vicinity of a first-class fortress. It also rejected, -on the first of these grounds, a proposal by the lesser Channel Tunnel -Company for a tunnel that would start from within Dover and for the -sake of easy destructibility run right under a nearby corner of Dover -Castle—and on the grounds that this entrance would be _too_ much in -the vicinity of a fortress. And the committee objected that since the -proposed entrance would emerge "in the heart of the main defences and -in the midst of the town" any fire from these defenses "would inflict -great injury on the town and its inhabitants, and the general defence -would be much embarrassed." - -At the War Office, the report of the Alison committee was supplemented -by another long memorandum on the tunnel question by Sir Garnet -Wolseley. In this document of some twenty thousand words, which -was conveniently furnished with numerous marginal headings like -"Why tunnels through the Alps afford no argument in favor of the -Channel Tunnel," "The Tunnel an acknowledged danger," "What national -advantage then justifies its construction," "Many tunnels will be -constructed," "What we owe to the Channel," and "Danger of surprise -of our fortifications without warning! Fatal result!!," Sir Garnet -recapitulated and elaborated at great length upon his previous -arguments against the tunnel and added several new ones. Sir Garnet -went into fine detail concerning the possibility of a sudden seizure -of the English end of the tunnel and, simultaneously, Dover, by the -French. For example, to his previous description of how hostile -French forces might come by train through the tunnel dressed in -ordinary clothes he added the detail that they might also travel -in the carriages "at express speed, with the blinds down, in their -uniforms and fully armed"—their co-conspirators at the other end -meanwhile having rendered it "not likely that ticket-takers or -telegraph operators on the French side would be allowed any channel -of communicating with us until the operation had been effected." Sir -Garnet was equally explicit about the situation at Dover. Warning that -"the civilian may start in horror at the statement that Dover could -also be taken by surprise," General Wolseley declared that, as things -stood, anybody at all, any night, was free to walk up to any of the -forts at Dover, and, "if he would announce himself to be an officer -returning home to barracks, the wicket would be opened to him, and -if he entered he would see but two men, one the sentry, the other -the noncommissioned officer who had been roused up from sleep by the -sentry to unlock the gate." General Wolseley demonstrated how such a -caller might well be "a dashing partisan leader" of a French raiding -party that had landed in Dover in the dead of night, in calm or foggy -weather, from steamers, and had already quietly knocked down and -silenced any watchman or other witnesses in the dark area. He showed -how such a _soi-disant_ English officer and his accomplices "might thus -easily obtain an entrance into every fort in Dover; the sentry and the -sleepy sergeant might be easily disposed of. The rifles of our sentries -at home are not loaded, and the few men on guard [could be] made -prisoners whilst asleep on their guard bed." Thus, General Wolseley -said, the intruders could quickly effect the seizure of all the forts -in Dover—"In an hour's time from the moment when our end of the tunnel -was taken possession of by the enemy, large reinforcements could reach -Dover through the tunnel, and ... before morning dawned, Dover might -easily be in possession of 20,000 of the enemy, and every succeeding -hour would add to that number." With Dover done in, London would be -next, and the future commander-in-chief of the British Army went on to -show how the enemy force, now swelled to 150,000 men, once it reached -London and occupied the Thames from there to the arsenal at Woolwich, -could dictate its own terms of peace, which he estimated at a rough -guess as the payment of six hundred million pounds and the surrender -of the British Fleet, with the English end of the tunnel remaining -permanently in the hands of the French, so that "the perpetual yoke of -servitude would be ours for ever." - -Concerning all the various measures proposed to protect the tunnel, -Sir Garnet had no confidence in them at all. He stressed once more -the unreliability of anything mechanical or electrical, and he added -the new argument that whatever secret devices, such as mines, were -installed in the tunnel for its protection were bound to come to the -knowledge of the enemy sooner or later. Any military secret, General -Wolseley said, was a purchasable secret; he illustrated his argument -with an observation concerning a meeting between Napoleon I and -Alexander I of Russia: - - No two men were more loyally followed or had more absolute authority - than Napoleon and Alexander. No two men had a stronger wish or - stronger motive for keeping secret the words which passed between them - personally in a most private conference in a raft in the middle of - a river. Yet, by paying a large sum our Ministry obtained the exact - terms of the secret agreement the two had there arrived at. Moreover, - our Ministry obtained that information so immediately that they were - able to act in anticipation of the designs formed by the two Emperors. - -Finally, having discussed, in the most elaborate fashion, all the -measures that his previous opposition to the scheme had caused to be -proposed for the defense of the tunnel, Sir Garnet condemned them -on the ground of their very elaborateness. "If in any one of these -respects our security fails, it fails in all," he wrote of the multiple -precautions recommended by Sir Archibald Alison's scientific committee. -Thus, in General Wolseley's eyes, the defense of the tunnel was -foredoomed as a self-defeating process, and was therefore a practical -impossibility. - -The question of the multiplicity of the proposed defenses was handled -in different fashion in a further War Office memorandum on the tunnel, -issued by the Duke of Cambridge, the Army Commander-in-Chief and a -cousin of Queen Victoria. "Nothing has impressed me more with the -magnitude of the danger which the construction of this proposed tunnel -would bring with it," the Duke of Cambridge wrote, "than the amount -of precautions and their elaborateness [proposed by] this Scientific -Committee.... If this danger was small, as some would have the country -believe, why should all these complicated precautions be necessary?" -The Duke of Cambridge fully endorsed the position taken by Sir Garnet -Wolseley. He protested "most emphatically" against the construction -of a Channel tunnel and "would most earnestly beg Her Majesty's -Government" to consider with the utmost gravity the perils of surprise -attack upon the country arising out of even a modified scheme that -would take into account the recommendations of the Alison committee. - -To his memorandum His Royal Highness appended a copy of a report -that he had had his intelligence service put together specially in -connection with the tunnel question—a long account purporting to -show some hundred and seven instances occurring in the history of -the previous two hundred years where hostilities between states had -been started without any prior declaration of war, or even any decent -notification. - -If anything seemed likely to have been successfully blocked up and -finished off under all this bombardment, it was Sir Edward Watkin's -Channel-tunnel scheme. Curiously enough, the Board of Trade, which -had ordered the tunnel workings stopped back in April and had no -intention of issuing a working permit for them now, was not altogether -convinced of this. In fact, since April the Board had been developing -the suspicion that something peculiar might be going on down under the -sea at Shakespeare Cliff. Back in the early part of April, the Board -of Trade's order to the Submarine Continental Railway Company to stop -its tunneling activities was received, as one might expect, with some -anguish. The first formal reaction was a letter from the permanent -secretary of the company to T. H. Farrer, the secretary of the Board -of Trade, saying that the company would of course acquiesce in the -orders of the board, but begging, at the same time, to be allowed to -continue the present gallery extending from the main, or Number Two, -shaft at Shakespeare Cliff a short distance further, so as to be able -to complete the first stage of the works—the junction of the main -gallery with the new gallery extending from the ventilating, or Number -Three, shaft. This letter was followed on April 9 by another from Sir -Edward Watkin addressed to Joseph Chamberlain, the president of the -Board of Trade, urgently repeating the request, this time on the ground -of safety. Sir Edward wrote Mr. Chamberlain: - - The moment the Board of the Tunnel Company decided to obey you, I - peremptorily ordered the works to be stopped. The [boring] machine has - been silent since Thursday evening. But the Engineer sends me a very - startling report and warning. - - He fears _defective ventilation_ [owing to stoppage of the air-driven - boring machine] and danger to life—quite apart from depriving a fine - body of skilled workmen of their bread, and general loss and damage - in money. I can only reply to him that I am acting under your order. - Still ... this is the first time the ventilation of a mine has been - so interfered with. Should the engineer's alarm be well founded, and - should men faint from bad air at the end of the gallery, there would - be no means of getting them out alive. - -Sir Edward added, without changing his tone of humane agitation, -that only the day before he had received a request from the Duke of -Edinburgh to be allowed to see the tunnel workings, along with the -Duchess, ten days hence, and that the Speaker of the House of Commons -had already arranged to visit the tunnel "on Saturday, the 22nd, -leaving Charing Cross at eleven." "What must be done?" he asked. Mr. -Chamberlain replied promptly by telegraph that if the stopping of -the machinery in the tunnel was constituting a danger to life, he -authorized Sir Edward, pending further investigation of the situation -by the Board of Trade, temporarily to keep the machinery going to the -extent of preventing this danger. However, he followed up this telegram -with a letter to Sir Edward in which he expressed himself as being "not -able to understand the exact nature of the physical danger anticipated" -by Sir Edward in the tunnel if the workings were stopped. "I do not see -the necessity for workmen remaining in the tunnel where the ventilation -is likely to be defective," Mr. Chamberlain observed. He added that he -was making arrangements to have one of the Board of Trade inspectors -visit the tunnel to investigate the situation. - -On April 11, the Board of Trade duly telegraphed Sir Edward that its -chief inspector of railways, Colonel Yolland, of the Royal Engineers, -would be at Dover at noon the next day to investigate the ventilation -problem in the tunnel. Sir Edward, however, wired back that he was -unable to meet the Colonel at Dover that day and could not make an -appointment with him "until after the visit to the works of the Duke of -Edinburgh on Tuesday next." - -To this the Board of Trade replied, on April 13, that Colonel Yolland -had been instructed to visit the tunnel works "entirely out of regard -to the very urgent and grave question raised in your letter ... -respecting the ventilation of the boring" and that the department was -finding it difficult to understand why Colonel Yolland's visit to -the tunnel should be postponed. Sir Edward's answer to this was to -invite Mr. Chamberlain down into the tunnel personally, so that Sir -Edward could "show and explain everything," since "until you have -seen, and had explained to you, on the spot as Mr. Gladstone did and -had, and as we hope the Duke of Edinburgh will next Tuesday, the -nature and condition of our works, it is, in my humble judgement, -impossible to discuss the question with exactitude." He said nothing -about the possibility of Mr. Chamberlain's or the Duke and Duchess of -Edinburgh's being asphyxiated in the tunnel. Mr. Chamberlain declined -the invitation; he said he had ordered Colonel Yolland down to Dover -immediately to report on the tunnel. But Colonel Yolland didn't get -down into the tunnel to make an inspection that month. Some impediment, -some unanticipated difficulty always seemed to arise when things -appeared to be about to straighten themselves out. By the beginning -of May, the Board of Trade, still trying, flatly informed Sir Edward -that Colonel Yolland and Walter Murton, its solicitor, would inspect -the tunnel workings on May 6. But on May 4 the general manager of the -South-Eastern Railway replied that "Sir Edward Watkin wishes me to say -that he regrets very much that it will be quite impossible to arrange -for such inspection to take place on that date." He suggested that Sir -Edward could arrange it for the 13th. The Board of Trade, replying -immediately, insisted on its taking place "not later than Wednesday -next." That letter was met with the answer that "Sir Edward Watkin -is at present out of town, and is not expected to return until early -next week." He must have stayed out of town quite a while, because the -Board of Trade heard nothing from the company until May 18, when the -directors of the company, writing jointly, told the department that -while they acquiesced in the request of Colonel Yolland and Mr. Murton -to visit the tunnel, unfortunately "the machinery is under repair," -and as a consequence "it would not be ... safe for those gentlemen -to go down the shaft." However, the directors added, hopefully, they -felt sure that "by working the machinery, air compressors, and pumping -engines for a few days and nights" their engineers could get everything -in order for a proper tour of inspection. On May 24 Mr. Murton tried -again. He wrote the tunnel proprietors, notifying them that "Colonel -Yolland and myself propose to inspect the tunnel works on Saturday next -the 27th instant." But the company's reply to the letter was regretful. -It said that "the repairs to the winding engine cannot be completed -until after Whitsuntide." - -Meanwhile, Mr. Murton was having his difficulties with the solicitor -of the South-Eastern over the legal question of the company's claims -to ancient manorial rights to the use of the foreshore at Shakespeare -Cliff, as the tone of various letters he was obliged to write -indicates. For example: - - DEAR SIR, - - May I remind you that I have not yet received the abstract of title; I - beg that you will at once send it to me.... - - I am, & c., - WALTER MURTON - - -Or again: - - DEAR SIR, - - I am without answer to my letter of the 31st ultimo. I beg you will - let me know without further delay whether you do or do not propose to - send me abstract of title. - - I am, & c., - WALTER MURTON - - -Or yet again: - - DEAR SIR, - - Will you kindly write me a reply to my letters which I can send on to - the Board of Trade. - - Yours, & c., - WALTER MURTON - - -By June 9, the Board of Trade became quite out of patience over the -matter of inspecting the tunnel. Introducing an ominous note, it -informed Sir Edward that Mr. Chamberlain "feels that he must insist -upon this visit of inspection, and if he understands that permission -is refused, will be compelled to place the matter in the hands of his -legal advisers, with the view of determining and enforcing the rights -of the Crown." Sir Edward was indignant. In reply, he declared that -he was being subjected to an "undeserved threat." Mr. Chamberlain, -responding, denied that the threat was undeserved. He wrote firmly: - - Hitherto, on one ground or another, this inspection has been again and - again postponed. - - I am bound to guard the rights of the Crown in this matter, and I - desire to ascertain whether those rights have up to the present time - been in any way invaded. - - This is the object of the inspection, and as it will not brook delay - ... I have only now to ask an immediate answer stating definitely when - it can take place. - -Sir Edward's answer was once more to beg Mr. Chamberlain himself to -join a party of prominent visitors going down to see the tunnel; he -added that "Colonel Yolland shall be at once communicated with." - -But by various intervening circumstances—joint letters got up by the -tunnel promoters to the Prime Minister and to the Board of Trade -protesting hard treatment, and so on—the Board of Trade found itself -brooking delays all through the month of June. On June 26, the Board -of Trade wrote in stern fashion to Sir Edward that the demands of the -Board of Trade to inspect the tunnel workings "have been repeatedly -formulated and persistently evaded on behalf of the Submarine -Continental Railway Company," and that the only way the company could -avoid legal action by the Crown was "to consent _at once_ to the -proposed inspection." There was no satisfactory reply from the tunnel -proprietors, and on July 5 the Board of Trade, after due notification -to the Submarine Continental Railway Company, obtained an order from -Mr. Justice Kay, in the High Court of Justice, restraining the tunnel -promoters and their employees from "further working or excavating, -or taking or interfering with any chalk, soil, or other substance" -in the Channel tunnel without the consent of the Board of Trade, and -ordering them to give the department access to the tunnel to inspect -the workings. In the course of these judicial proceedings, a number of -affidavits presented to Mr. Justice Kay by the Government revealed the -interesting information that the Board of Trade, finding itself unable -to obtain access for its inspectors into the tunnel, for some time -past had felt itself obliged to station watchers on top of Shakespeare -Cliff and on the sea regularly to spy upon the tunnel workings and -to count the number of bucketfuls of soil it maintained had been -removed from the workings. And, according to all its calculations, the -Board of Trade had little doubt that the proprietors of the Submarine -Continental Railway Company were deliberately and surreptitiously -tunneling under the sea below low-water mark, on Crown property, and -burrowing into and removing chalk of the realm. - -Intimation of what was in store for him in the High Court of Justice -reached Sir Edward Watkin at the very time that he was showing a party -of distinguished people, including Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of -the Suez Canal, around the tunnel. A glimpse of that interesting visit -is contained in a report in the London _Times_: - - M. de Lesseps, while down in the tunnel and under the sea, proposed - the health of the Queen, remarking that the completion of the work was - required in the interest of mankind. - - When all the visitors were again above ground, luncheon was served in - a marquee. - - Sir E. Watkin, in proposing the health of M. de Lesseps, remarked - that there were those in our country who seemed to consider that the - work of the company they had just inspected was a crime. He had just - received a telegram informing him that he would have to answer on - Wednesday next at the instigation of the President of the Board of - Trade before a court of law for having committed the crime of carrying - on these experiments. (Hisses and groans.) - -Somewhat revealingly, Sir Edward added, when the signs of indignation -subsided, that - - For his own part, if he was to be committed by a court of law for - contempt, he should have this consolation—that the proceedings - which had been taken against him had been delayed sufficiently long - to enable him with his colleagues to have the honor of entertaining - M. de Lesseps, in whom he should have a witness, if he had to call - one, to prove that they had been engaged in a work which had been as - successful as he believed it would be ultimately useful. - -At long last, supported by all the might of the Crown, Colonel Yolland -got to the tunnel on July 8 to make his inspection of the workings. -But upon his arrival there he found, to his chagrin, that "I was not -provided, at the time ... with all the necessary means for making the -measurements, and taking the requisite bearings" in the tunnel, and he -was obliged to put his inspection off once more. Properly equipped, -he descended into the tunnel a week later, on Saturday, July 15, and -inspected everything, including the boring apparatus that Sir Edward -had insisted had to be used to ventilate the gallery and prevent -loss of life. What Colonel Yolland found there caused the Board of -Trade, five days later, to send a most severe letter to the tunnel -proprietors. In it, the Board declared: - - 1. That the means of ventilating the tunnel could have been and be so - readily disconnected from the boring machine (i.e., by the movement - of a single lever that would pour a stream of compressed air coming - from the supply pipe directly into the tunnel) that it has never been - necessary that a single inch of cutting should have taken place in - order to protect life or to secure ventilation, nor can such necessity - arise in the future. - - 2. That in spite of the repeated orders of the Board of Trade, and - the assurances of the Secretary of the Submarine Railway Company and - Sir Edward Watkin himself that those orders were acquiesced in and - submitted to, the substantial work of boring has nevertheless been - carried to a distance of more than 600 yards from low-water mark (thus - constituting a trespass on the property of the Crown). - -Calling these acts "a flagrant breach of faith" on the part of the -tunnel promoters, the Board of Trade wrote that henceforth the order -of the court "must be strictly and literally adhered to," and that -no work of maintenance, ventilation, drainage, or otherwise would be -allowed without the express permission of the board. Sir Edward Watkin -and his fellow directors, after some days, replied in hurt fashion to -what they termed "the unjustified accusations directed against them." -They reiterated their concern for the health of their employees in -the tunnel, and in connection with their tunneling activities below -low-water mark they came up with the ingenious explanation that "many -visits of Royal and other personages have been, by request, made to the -tunnel for purposes of inspection, and it was essential fully to work -the machine from time to time for the purpose of such visits." They -also sent a protest to Mr. Gladstone at 10 Downing Street against their -hard treatment, and asked for the Prime Minister's intercession with -the Board of Trade. But there was nothing doing. Mr. Gladstone politely -refused to act and replied that the actions of the Board of Trade had -the full sanction of the Government. - -On August 5, Colonel Yolland descended once more into the tunnel -to make an inspection. He found things there in a rather run-down -condition. "The tunnel is not nearly so dry as it was when I first -saw it," he wrote in his report to the Board of Trade, referring to -the fact that the engineers had ceased work on the drainage of the -gallery. Colonel Yolland also mentioned in his report that during his -previous visit, on July 15, "I had an escape from what might have been -a serious accident. The wet chalk in the bottom of the tunnel, between -and outside the rails of the tramways, is so slippery and greasy that -it is almost impossible to keep on one's feet; and, on one occasion, I -suddenly slipped, and fell at full length on my back, and the back of -my head came against one of the iron rails of the tramway—fortunately -with no great force or my skull might have been seriously bruised or -fractured." The Colonel added, "There is not light enough in the tunnel -from the electric lamps to enable one to see one's way through ... so -that it is necessary to carry a lamp in one hand and a note-book in the -other, to record the different measurements." The Colonel then gave -some startling news. He declared that, according to his measurements, -somebody had advanced the length of the tunnel some seventy yards since -his inspection on July 15. - -When this report reached the Board of Trade, the department, outraged, -made a motion before the High Court of Justice to cite the tunnel -promoters for contempt. However, a cloud of doubt descended on -the issue when the tunnel promoters claimed in court that Colonel -Yolland's calculations were in error. The motion was put off with the -promoters' promising to obey to the letter the demands of the Board of -Trade. Later on in the month, Colonel Yolland, after making a further -inspection, conceded that, owing to the difficulties of working in the -tunnel, he had made some error of calculation. The true advance made in -the tunnel since July 15, he said, was thirty-six yards—a figure he -said was confirmed by the tunnel company's engineer. Colonel Yolland -reported that the company engineers had installed a pump at the eastern -end of the tunnel to force out the water accumulating there. He added, -somewhat testily, "Of course men had to be employed in erecting this -pump in the tunnel and in working it when it was ready, and as the -boring machine has not been made use of for the purpose of cutting -chalk, this ... conclusively proves what I had stated in my former -reports, that it was not necessary to cut an inch of chalk for the -purpose of ventilating and draining the tunnel." - -Altogether, and with all the difficulties they had encountered, the -tunnel promoters had succeeded in boring the tunnel for a distance -of 2,100 yards, or a little less than a mile and a quarter, toward -France. The operations at the French end, which came to a stop in March -of 1883, completed 2,009 yards of pilot tunnel from the bottom of the -shaft by the cliffs at Sangatte. - -In the middle of August, the Government, having received all the -reports from the War Office and the Board of Trade on the subject -of the tunnel, caused the rival Channel-tunnel bills that had been -brought before it to be set aside, and at the same time Mr. Chamberlain -announced in the House of Commons that the Government had decided to -propose, early the following year, the appointment of a Joint Select -Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons to dispose -of the whole tunnel question as conclusively as possible. In the -meantime, he announced the Government's intention of publishing a -Blue Book containing all the principal documents and correspondence -concerning the tunnel. The Blue Book was issued in October, and once -again the wrath of the English press fell upon the tunnel project and -its promoters. The tone of the press comment was most majestically -represented by an editorial in the London _Times_, which had started -off the press campaign against the project the year before. The _Times_ -wrote that, unless it was much mistaken, "the publication of the Blue -Book will be found to have closed the whole question of the Channel -Tunnel for a long time to come." - - Undermined by land, overmined at sea, sluice-ridden at its entrance, - and liable to asphyxiating vapors at intervals, the Tunnel will hardly - be regarded by nervous travellers as a very pleasant alternative even - to the horrors of seasickness.... - - The whole system of defense must forever be at the mercy of - blunderers, criminals, and madmen. It is true that we take somewhat - similar risks in ordinary railway travelling, but imagination counts - for a good deal in such matters, and the terrors of the Channel - Tunnel under an adequate system of defense might easily affect the - imagination so strongly as to render the terrors of seasickness - insignificant by comparison. - -Caught between the forces of claustrophobia and xenophobia, Sir Edward -Watkin's great tunnel project was just about done for. In Westminster, -angry citizens exhibited their feelings by smashing all the windows of -the Channel Tunnel Company offices there. In the following year, the -promised new investigation into the tunnel question was undertaken by -a joint Parliamentary committee presided over by Lord Landsdowne. The -committee met fourteen times, examined forty witnesses, and asked them -fifty-three hundred and ninety-six questions. Not unexpectedly, the -witnesses included Sir Garnet Wolseley, now Lord Wolseley. That Lord -Wolseley in the interim had not changed his opinions on the perilous -consequences of a tunnel is evident from his response to just five of -the hundreds of questions put to him by the committee members. - - 5233: ... I think you said that supposing anyone in this room were to - go to the barrack gates [at any of the forts at Dover at night] and to - knock at the door, the door would at once be opened?—The wicket would - be opened to you. - - 5234: Would it be the case if the person who went there had a hundred - men in his company?—The man inside would not know that he had them, - he would never suspect a hundred men being outside; but I would go - further and say, even supposing that he would not open the barrack - gates, the barrack gates are very easily knocked in. - - 5235: Are there any drawbridges there?—There are, but they are very - seldom, if ever, drawn up in Dover. - - 5236: You said that if the tunnel were in existence, it would be - necessary that the conditions of life in Dover should be altered; - would that be one of the conditions which would be altered?—Yes. - - 5237: And the drawbridges would be up at night?—The drawbridges would - be up at night, and nobody would be allowed to go in or out after a - certain hour. - -When all the evidence was in, a majority of the joint Parliamentary -committee sided with the views of Lord Wolseley and voted against any -Parliamentary sanction's being given to a Channel tunnel. - -Sir Edward Watkin kept right on promoting his tunnel project for quite -a while. By 1884—a year, incidentally, when Lord Wolseley was called -away from the country to command the British expeditionary force that -arrived too late at Khartoum to relieve General Gordon—Sir Edward was -still doing his best to bring the British Army around to his viewpoint -on the tunnel. A series of contemporary illustrations in the London -illustrated weekly publication _The Graphic_ records some views of -a tunnel party held during that year for a group of British Army -officers. One of the engravings shows a number of officers preparing -to descend into the tunnel; the caption reads, "I say, Dear Chappie, -if we invade France through the Tunnel, I hope I shan't be told off -to lead the Advanced Guard." The visit was further reported on in an -accompanying article by one of a few journalists accompanying the -party. From this, it appears that the condition of the tunnel hadn't -improved since the time that Colonel Yolland nearly split his head open -in it. "Under foot for a great portion of the way," the author said, -in describing how the visitors were drawn along the long gallery on -canvas-hooded trolleys, "was ankle deep in slush," and he went on to -quote from the report of one of his colleagues: - - Onward to no sound, save the splashing made by the tall workmen [who - drew the trolleys] tramping through the mud and the drip, drip, drip - of the water upon the hood above our heads, we are dragged and pushed - ... under the bed of the Channel.... Sometimes, in the fitful flashes - of light, the eye rests on falling red rivulets, like streams of - blood, flowing down the damp walls. So we go on until the electric - lamps cease altogether, and the long, awful cave is enveloped in a - darkness that would be impenetrable but for the glimmer of a few - tallow candles stuck into the bare walls of the cutting. - -At the end of the tunnel the action of the boring machine was briefly -demonstrated, this time by special permission of the Board of Trade, -and then the party was escorted out of the tunnel and taken to a -good lunch, presumably at the Lord Warden Hotel. Another engraving -in the same issue of _The Graphic_ shows members of the same party -of officers, chairs drawn slightly back, sitting about a luncheon -table. The monocled guests, ranged on each side of a clutter of -bottles, potted ferns, place cards, and an interesting variety of -glasses—including, as one can see fairly clearly, champagne glasses, -claret glasses, and hock glasses—are being addressed by a bearded -speaker. They look dazed. Yet while using his best softening-up -techniques on the Army officers, Sir Edward did not let up his fire on -his principal opponents among the military. Thus, during 1884, when -he reintroduced his Tunnel Bill on the floor in Parliament (it was -rejected by 222 votes to 84) he ridiculed the anti-tunnel generals for -publicly confessing an inability to cope with defending a frontier -"no bigger than the door of the House of Commons." Dealing with the -question of British insularity, he also introduced the argument that -since France and England had once been united as part of the same -continental land mass his opponents, in refusing to unite them again, -were openly showing distrust of the wisdom of Providence in having -created the connection in the first place. This last assertion really -incensed the editors of the London _Times_, who had been steadily -invoking Providence as their ally against the tunnel all along. The -_Times_ ran an editorial declaring angrily that no stronger reason -could be found for distrusting the whole tunnel scheme than the fact -that Sir Edward had been reduced to using such an argument. The _Times_ -added, severely, "Ordinary people will probably be content to take the -world as it appears in historic times. Everything that we possess and -are—our character, our language, our freedom, our institutions, our -religion, our unviolated hearths, and our far-extended Empire—we owe -to the encircling sea; and when Englishmen try to penetrate the designs -of Providence they will not seek them in geological speculations, but -will rather thank Him Who 'isled us here.'" - -Sir Edward, in his indomitable fashion, not only pursued his -geological speculations but also kept pursuing the tunnel question -in Parliament. In 1887, a year in which he changed the name of the -Submarine Continental Railway Company to that of the Channel Tunnel -Company (he had taken over the long-moribund rival company in 1886), -he went on such a powerful campaign on behalf of a new Channel Tunnel -Bill that it was defeated in the House by only seventy-six votes. In -1888, he tried again, and even managed to persuade Mr. Gladstone, -now the leader of the Opposition, that the Channel could be tunneled -under with propriety. As a result, Mr. Gladstone, in June 1888, gave -his personal support to Sir Edward's Tunnel Bill and delivered a long -Parliamentary speech on the subject. In this dissertation the venerable -statesman, while taking nothing back about the wisdom of Providence -in placing the Channel where it was, said he had now come to feel -that a Channel tunnel could be used "without altering in any way our -insular character or insular security, to give us some of the innocent -and pacific advantages of a land frontier." But even Mr. Gladstone's -support couldn't swing it. Parliament would not agree to the tunnel. At -last, after all these setbacks, Sir Edward had to consider the tunnel -project as a lost cause, if only temporarily. He stopped promoting -it in 1894, having become involved in the meantime in a couple of -alternate projects—a railway tunnel between Scotland and Ireland and a -ship canal in Ireland between Dublin and Galway. Also, in 1889, he had -become chairman of a company to erect at Wembley Park, near London, a -great iron tower, modeled on the Eiffel Tower, which was to be known as -the Watkin Tower. The Watkin Tower didn't get very high. Only a single -stage was completed, and this was opened to the public in 1896; it was -demolished eleven years later. Sir Edward Watkin died at Northenden, -Cheshire, in 1901. - - - - -[Illustration: Five] - - -The advent of the Entente Cordiale in 1904 provided the basis for the -next attempt to revive the tunnel scheme. In 1907, the English Channel -Tunnel Company, by now under the chairmanship of Baron Frederic Emile -d'Erlanger, a banker, made another attempt to obtain Parliamentary -approval for a tunnel. This time, the company had the advantage -of bringing to bear on its behalf solid engineering studies and -twentieth-century technology. The trains in the tunnel were now to be -all electric, and the difficult task of evacuating the spoil from the -tunnel during its construction was to be carried out by an ingenious -new method, invented by a Frenchman named Philippe Fougerolles, of -pulverizing it and mixing it with sea water into a soft slurry, then -pumping the slurry out of the tunnel through pipelines. This time, -while all the old arguments for and against the tunnel were being -rehashed in Parliament, the tunnel promoters came up with a novel -proposal designed to demonstrate the benign intentions toward England -of the French Government and to allay the suspicions of the anti-tunnel -faction in England. They suggested that the French end of the tunnel -emerge from the side of a steep cliff on the shore of the Channel at -Wissant, not far from Sangatte. The sole access to the tunnel entrance -on the French side then would be made through a long horseshoe-shaped -railway viaduct extending for some distance out over the sea and -doubling back again to join, a mile or so away from the tunnel -entrance, the French coastal rail line. Thus, the French suggested, the -British fleet would be at liberty to sail up and array itself at any -point offshore in a time of national emergency and at its convenience -to shell the viaduct and tunnel entrance to smithereens. Expounding -on the advantages of this plan in the pages of the _Revue Politique -et Parlementaire_, one of the two principal architects of the 1907 -tunnel plan, Albert Sartiaux—the other was the engineer, Sir Francis -Fox—encouragingly pointed out that such a viaduct not only would -constitute the most perfect target imaginable for the guns of the Royal -Navy, but also "would be a magnificent _point de vue_ for tourists." -These inducements were insufficient, however. Parliament turned down -the tunnel again. And a Labor M.P. declared, "If the Channel were -tunneled, the Army and Navy estimates would speedily grow beyond the -control of the most resolutely prudent financier. Old-age pensions -would dwindle out of sight, and a shilling income tax would soon be -regarded as the distant dream of an Arcadian past." - -Just before the First World War, the Channel Tunnel Company, headed by -Baron Frederic Emile d'Erlanger's son, Baron Emile Beaumont d'Erlanger, -embarked on another crusade. In 1913, a deputation representing ninety -M.P.s favorable to the tunnel scheme visited Herbert Asquith, the -Prime Minister, to ask for the Government's approval for the scheme, -and the Liberal London _Daily Chronicle_, editorially proclaiming that -the advent of the airplane had put an end to England's position as an -island, came through with a big pro-tunnel press campaign. However, the -_Times_ of London continued to stick firmly to its ancient position, -and it ran an editorial restating its old arguments against the tunnel -and ingeniously adding a new one—that even if there were no real -possibility of invasion, the very existence of the tunnel "might even -itself lead to a precipitation of war, if in case of international -complications it was considered necessary, in a possible moment of -confusion, to close the tunnel at the Dover end." In July 1914, -less than a fortnight before the outbreak of war, the Committee of -Imperial Defense turned the tunnel scheme down again. But the value -of a Channel tunnel as a supply route for the Allied armies on the -Continent continued to be debated throughout the war, and when it was -over Marshal Foch declared publicly that "If the English and the French -had had a tunnel under the Channel in 1914, the war would have been -shortened by at least two years." The Marshal was promptly made the -honorary president of the Comité Français du Tunnel. - -In postwar England, the tunnel project began to obtain heavy support -in Parliament. By 1924, some four hundred M.P.s—about two-thirds of -the House—were said to be for it, and the new Labor Prime Minister, -Ramsay MacDonald, promised a careful and sympathetic review of the -Government's position on the tunnel. He called all of the four living -former Prime Ministers—Lord Balfour, Herbert Asquith, Lloyd George, -and Stanley Baldwin—into consultation on the matter, as well as the -Committee of Imperial Defense. The Prime Ministers met for forty -minutes and rejected the scheme again, and MacDonald told Parliament -that the Government felt postwar military developments had "tended, -without exception, to render the Channel tunnel a more dangerous -experiment" than ever. Winston Churchill protested the decision. "I do -not hesitate to say that it was wrong," he told the House. - -In 1929, everybody had a go at the tunnel once more, and very elaborate -engineering studies were made on the subject by well-established -engineering firms and were carefully examined by a special Government -committee, with particular attention being given to the contention -of pro-tunnel people that the construction of a Channel tunnel would -provide badly needed work for Englishmen in depression times. The -report of the Government's committee was, with a single dissension, -favorable to the construction of the tunnel. But the Committee of -Imperial Defense still was to have its say, and in May 1930 it -rejected the project. This time the rejection was made primarily on -two grounds, according to a high British military man who was later a -member of that body. The first of these, he says, was the fear of the -military that the successful construction of a Channel tunnel would -so adversely affect England's Channel shipping trade that the Channel -ports were likely to fall into ill repair and the harbors to start -silting up—dangerous conditions in periods of national emergency; the -second was their fear that if Britain became involved in another war on -the Continent, the tunnel would suddenly become a traffic bottleneck -through which it would be difficult to move war supplies and equipment -quickly and on the massive scale required. A month after this adverse -verdict by the military, a motion was nonetheless put forward in the -House of Commons for approval of the tunnel, and this time such a large -group of M.P.s was favorable to the scheme that the motion failed to -carry by only seven votes. - -For most of the thirties, the tunnel project just drifted along in a -dormant state. Once every so often, when things were generally slack, -the press would carry a feature story on it, and the annual meetings of -the Channel Tunnel Company, still gamely presided over by Baron Emile -Beaumont d'Erlanger, were always good for a paragraph tucked somewhere -into the financial pages under mildly mocking headlines, such as -"Hope Eternal," "The Channel Tunnel Again," or, in one of the popular -dailies, just "The Poor Old Tunnel." - -The outbreak of the Second World War, however, far from putting the -Channel tunnel completely out of sight, revived the issue, for a -time, anyway. In November 1939 the French Chamber of Deputies passed -a resolution calling for the construction of a tunnel; early in 1940, -Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain—the son, incidentally, of Joseph -Chamberlain, who as president of the Board of Trade had ordered the -tunnel workings stopped back in the eighties—turned the tunnel project -down again in a parliamentary reply. The retreat from Dunkirk gave -pro-tunnel and anti-tunnel people the opportunity of putting forth -their arguments about the tunnel once more, with some variations—with -the pro-tunnelers claiming that a Channel tunnel might have enabled the -British Expeditionary Force to keep a bridgehead in France, and the -anti-tunnelers countering that the same tunnel would have given German -paratroopers the opportunity of seizing the English end and using it as -a bridgehead for the invasion of England. - -Then, after the fall of France, when the Germans were busily making -preparations for the invasion of England, the question arose among -the British military as to whether the enemy might not just possibly -attempt to reach England by surreptitiously tunneling underneath the -Channel. As a consequence, the War Office called in an eminent British -civil engineer, the late Sir William Halcrow, and asked him to make -a study of the question of whether the Germans could pull off such a -feat. "We examined the situation quite carefully and concluded that, -provided we kept reasonably alert, the Germans could not dig the tunnel -without being detected," an engineering colleague of Sir William -Halcrow's on the survey said a while ago. He added, "Their difficulty -would lie in the disposal of the spoil. They couldn't get rid of it -without our seeing from the air that something peculiar was going on. -If they tried to dump the spoil into the sea at night it would have to -be done at the turn of the tide, and the chalk would leave a cloud in -the sea that would not be dissipated by daylight. If they pulverized -the spoil, converted it into a slurry, and pumped it well out to sea, -we would be able to spot the chalk cloud too, and even if they tried -other means of dispersing the spoil the very process of dispersal would -call for such extensive installations that we would soon be on to them." - -In 1942, somebody at the War Office had another look into the tunnel -situation, this time for the purpose of finding out if it would be -practical for the British to start tunneling under the Channel—the -idea presumably being the creation of a supply route to France ahead -of an Allied invasion, with the last leg of the route being completed -once the Allied Armies had installed themselves on the French -coast. Again, several prominent British civil engineers were called -into consultation, but the subject was abruptly dropped, without -investigation of the problem of disposing of the spoil, when the -engineers estimated that a tunnel probably would take eight years to -complete—three years longer than the war then was expected to last. - -From 1940 on, the British kept a routine watch on their reconnaissance -photographs for signs of tunneling on the French side, especially -around the site of the still existing shaft of the French Tunnel -Company at Sangatte. Early in 1944, R.A.F. and U.S.A.F. reconnaissance -showed signs of unusual installations being made near Sangatte, but -these later turned out to be unconnected with subterranean workings. As -it happened, they were launching sites for V-2 bombs. - -The actual handling by the Germans of the old tunnel shaft during the -occupation of France was rather peculiar. Far from trying to continue -the existing tunnel in the early part of the Occupation, they treated -it in contemptuous fashion, using the shaft as a dump for old chunks -of machinery, used shell casings, bits of rubbish, and broken slabs of -concrete. Later on, their attitude changed drastically. They sealed -the top of the shaft with a poured-concrete platform. Then, in weirdly -romantic fashion, they built a large rim of fitted stone around the -platform to create an ornamental-wall effect, and added around the -well a grass-and-flagstone terrace complete with formal walks and -sets of monumental-looking stone steps laid out in symmetrical style. -Apparently their notion was to bring the tunnel aesthetically into -harmony with a military cemetery they installed between the tunnel -entrance and the sea. - -After the war, the Channel-tunnel project continued to languish in -prewar fashion. If anything, even less than before was heard in the -press about the activities of the Channel Tunnel Company. The company's -headquarters at the Southern Railway offices at London Bridge were -blown up in the blitz, and all the company's records were destroyed. -For some time, while attempts were made to piece together duplicate -lists from Government files, the Channel Tunnel Company didn't even -know who the majority of its stockholders were, but that didn't -matter too much, considering the circumstances. Baron Emile Beaumont -d'Erlanger, the chairman, had died in 1939, and his place on the Board -was taken by his nephew, Leo d'Erlanger, also a banker. Leo d'Erlanger, -now a spry, elegant, silver-haired gentleman in his sixties, brightly -confesses to having had little interest in the tunnel until about -twelve years ago. "I was brought up in a home where the Channel tunnel -was a family religion, and, to tell the truth, I didn't give it too -much thought," he says. "My grandfather used to talk about it when I -came back for the holidays from Eton. 'Politics,' they all used to say. -'The only reason why the tunnel isn't built is politics.' I never paid -much attention. I thought it was an old dodo and never had anything to -do with it in my Uncle Emile's lifetime. When he died and I took over, -I used to look forward with dread to the annual general meetings. I -had nothing to say. I considered the whole thing moribund. For a few -years we met, I remember, at the Charing Cross Hotel, which belonged to -the Southern Railway [a successor to Sir Edward Watkin's South-Eastern -Railway], and the secretary was an elderly retired man by the name of -Cramp, who once had something to do with the Southern Railway, I think. -We used to have difficulty in getting a quorum. I suppose we would -manage to get four or five people to turn up." - -However, the lost-cause atmosphere began to undergo a change in -1948, when Sir Herbert Walker, the former general manager of the -Southern Railway, which was taken over by British Railways in the -nationalization program of that year, acted temporarily as chairman -of the Channel Tunnel Company. Walker came to believe that the -Channel-tunnel scheme could be a practical one in the postwar era, and -he brought it to life again. Largely as a result of his persuasions, -a Parliamentary study group began to look into the tunnel question -once more, and the Channel Tunnel Company's lobbyists once more set -about building up pro-tunnel opinion among M.P.s. It was just like old -times for the pro-tunnelers, but with one significant difference. By -the mid-fifties, it became clear that in the emerging age of rockets -bearing nuclear warheads the traditional strategic arguments of the -British military against the construction of a Channel tunnel would -no longer have the same force that they had once had. And as for the -old fears of military conscription in peacetime and high taxes, they -had long ago been realized without a tunnel. It was therefore an event -to make the hearts of all pro-tunnelers beat fast when, one day in -February 1955, in the House of Commons, Harold Macmillan, then Minister -of Defense, in answer to a parliamentary question as to whether the -Government would have objections of a military nature to raise against -a Channel tunnel, replied, "Scarcely at all." - -This seemed like a green light to D'Erlanger, but for a while he -couldn't quite decide what to do after seeing it flash on. Early in -1956, however, he went to see Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, who was a director -of the French Tunnel Company—the Société Concessionnaire du Chemin -de Fer Sous-marin entre la France et l'Angleterre—and the grandson -of Michel Chevalier, who had founded the company in 1875. D'Erlanger -suggested that, since the tunnel was a common ancestral interest, the -two of them have another try at promoting it. Leroy-Beaulieu agreed, -and he suggested that as the Suez Canal Company's concession in Egypt -was due to run out in 1968, and might not be renewed, the Suez Company -might possibly be interested in turning to a Channel tunnel as its -next project. Sure enough, the principals of the Suez Company, whose -headquarters were in Paris, were interested in the idea, but the sudden -seizure of the Canal by Colonel Nasser in July of that year kept -them too distracted to pursue the tunnel project just then. In the -meantime, quite independently of these tunnel developments in Paris and -London, two young international lawyers in New York, Frank Davidson -and Cyril Means, Jr., became intrigued by the possibility of a tunnel -between England and France. Davidson and Means happened to have good -connections in Wall Street, and after they established contact with the -two existing tunnel companies by letter, Means went over to London and -Paris early in February of 1957 to investigate the tunnel situation -and to offer the tunnel people there—and the Suez Canal Company—the -chance of obtaining some substantial American financial backing for the -construction of a tunnel if it proved to be a practical proposition. -The tunnel people in Europe showed varying degrees of interest in the -proposal, and to strengthen their position, Davidson and Means, with -another friend, an engineer, Arnaud de Vitry d'Avancourt, formed a New -York corporation called Technical Studies, Inc., with the announced -purpose of financing technical investigations and promoting the -construction of a Channel tunnel. - -In April 1957, the Suez Canal Company, which by then had given up -any hope of regaining control of the Canal, jumped into the tunnel -picture by announcing that it intended to collaborate with the English -and French tunnel companies to have made a very detailed geological -survey of the Channel bed to determine the practicability of a tunnel. -The tunnel came into the news again. When, at the seventy-sixth -annual meeting of the Channel Tunnel Company, in London, D'Erlanger -got up to confirm the latest development, he did so not before the -usual handful of disillusioned shareholders, but in a room packed -with people who had suddenly rediscovered and dusted off old Channel -Tunnel Company stock certificates. A correspondent from the _Times_ -of London who was present reported of the stockholders' reaction to -the speech of the company's chairman on the possibilities of seriously -reviving the tunnel project that it took only a few minutes "to excite -their minds to a pleasurable pitch" and that "at least one member -of Mr. d'Erlanger's audience darted out in the middle of his speech -to instruct his broker to buy in shares." According to the _Times_, -the only note of doubt was struck by a stockholder at the end of the -meeting, which lasted half an hour: - - Mr. John Elliott, who bought his shares for a song almost, asked where - the company's workings were. Did they really exist? He had visited - Dover, and neither police, shopkeepers, nor the county surveyor could - tell him where they were. He suggested that the board prove their - existence by escorting a nominated half-dozen shareholders on an - eye-witness excursion. - -Little attention was paid to the objector. The _Times_ reported that -"other shareholders pooh-poohed his scepticism," and the meeting broke -up. It was a far cry from the days of Sir Edward Watkin's special -trains to Dover for tunnel parties. However, the price of Channel -Tunnel Company stock, which had been available for years on the London -Stock Exchange for as low as sixpence, rose to more than ten shillings -by the day of the meeting and shortly thereafter rose rapidly, until by -May 20 it reached twenty-six shillings and ninepence—six shillings and -ninepence more than the price of the first Channel Tunnel Company stock -in 1876. - -The British press, on the whole, reacted to the latest tunnel -development in tolerant fashion. There was, however, a spirited -discussion of the subject in an article in the _Daily Telegraph_ -in the spring of 1957, marked by an attack on the whole scheme by -Major-General Sir Edward Spears. General Spears wrote that although -powerful interests now appeared to be backing the construction of -a Channel tunnel, the objections raised to the project in the past -were as valid as ever. "Such a tunnel would bind this island to the -Continent irrevocably [and] would soon link our fate to that of our -Continental neighbors," he asserted, and he added that if the new -scheme were persisted in, steps should be taken to enlighten the public -before the Government was committed to approving it. General Spears's -position was supported by Lord Montgomery. Choosing Trafalgar Day as -the most appropriate time to express himself on the subject, Lord -Montgomery said at a Navy League luncheon in October of 1957, "There -is talk these days of a Channel tunnel. Strategically it would weaken -us. Why give up one of our greatest assets—our island home—and make -things easier for our enemies? The Channel tunnel is a wildcat scheme -and I am wholeheartedly opposed to it.... I hope that the Navy League -will have nothing to do with it." - -However, by Trafalgar Day the pro-tunnelers were hard at it, too. -In July 1957, the four main interests involved in the scheme—the -English and French Channel-tunnel companies, the Suez Canal Company and -Technical Studies—had combined to create an organization called the -Channel Tunnel Study Group to contract for modern technical surveys of -the whole tunnel question. The new group is said to have spent over -a million dollars on having these surveys made. The studies included -a very detailed survey of the Channel bed with modern electronic -geophysical equipment and deep rock borings and sea-bottom samples made -across the neck of the Channel, as well as microscopic examination -of these rock samples to determine their microfossil composition and -probable position in the strata from which they were taken. Curiously -enough, while the geological survey was under way, somebody on the -project took the trouble to inquire into the old French hydrographic -surveys for a Channel tunnel, and after some diligent searching he -turned up, in a dusty waiting room of a disused Paris suburban railroad -station, where it had been stored for an age, a collection of thousands -of the sea-bottom samples made in the French Channel-tunnel surveys -of 1875 and 1876. All of the samples were found neatly packed away in -test tubes and ticketed, and the searchers even uncovered a case of the -geological specimens that Thomé de Gamond himself had recovered in 1855 -by his naked plunges to the bottom of the Channel in the neighborhood -of the Varne. The geologists weren't interested in going by way of the -Varne any more, but many of the old 1875-76 samples were taken away for -microfossil examination as part of a check on how the results of the -old surveys compared with the new. Except for some variations relating -to the extent of the cretaceous outcrop in the middle of the Channel, -the findings tallied nicely. - -The new Study Group had a number of other elaborate surveys made, too, -on the economic and engineering problems involved in the creation and -operation of a Channel tunnel or an equivalent means of cross-Channel -transport. Besides developing plans for a bored tunnel—the projected -double-rail tunnel, interconnected at intervals by cross-passages, -is essentially a modern version of William Low's plan of the 1860s, -with an extra small service tunnel being added between the main -tunnels—the Study Group's engineering consultants developed in detail -schemes for a Channel bridge, an immersed railway tube, an immersed -road tube, a combined immersed tube with two railway tracks, and a -four-way road system on two levels. The bridge proposed would be an -enormous affair with approximately 142 piers and with four main spans -in the center of the Strait each 984 feet long. These spans would -tower a maximum of 262-1/2 feet above sea level to allow the largest -ships in the world to pass underneath with plenty of room to spare. -The bridge would take no longer to build than a road tunnel, but it -would cost about twice as much, and in addition it would be expensive -and difficult to maintain and would present a hazard to navigation. -The immersed tube proposed for either rail or road traffic (but not -both) probably would cost about the same as a bored tunnel and might -be constructed in four years. A combined road-rail tube would take -about the same time to build, but would be more expensive even than a -bridge. Among the best-known schemes for a combined tube is that of -a Frenchman, André Basdevant, who has proposed one with a four-lane -highway and a two-track rail line. This scheme would pretty much -run along the old Cap Gris-Nez-Folkestone route of Thomé de Gamond, -and it would even have, like most of Thomé de Gamond's schemes, an -artificial island in mid-channel on the Varne. As for the latest -scheme for a laid, rather than a bored, tube, it would be no different -from Thomé de Gamond's plan in 1834 for a submerged tube, and as in -that old plan a trench would be dug, by operations conducted at the -surface, across the Channel bottom to receive the tube, which would be -prefabricated in sections and towed out to sea to be laid down in the -trench a section at a time. This time the digging of the trench would -be carried out from a huge above-surface working platform, something -like an aircraft-carrier deck on sets of two-hundred-foot-high stilts, -that would jack itself up and move on across the Channel as the work -progressed. From these and other surveys, the Study Group concluded -by March 1960 that the best means of linking Britain and France would -be by a rail tunnel, either bored or immersed, which, while avoiding -the difficult ventilation problems of a long road tunnel, would make -for convenient transport of cars and trucks by a piggyback system. It -further proposed that the tunnel be operated jointly by the British and -French Government-run railways under a long lease from an international -company yet to be formed, and that only the bare tunnel itself be -privately financed, with the British and French state-run railways -providing the installations, terminals, and rolling stock at a cost of -some twenty million pounds. - -When D'Erlanger announced the Study Group's proposals, calling all the -latest tunnel laborings "a last glorious effort to get this through," -the British press received the news with big headlines on the front -pages but with considerable indignation on its editorial pages. The -core of the objections was not of a military nature but had to do -with the number of financial concessions that the tunnel people were -asking from the British and French Governments (that is, taxpayers) -as a basis for going ahead with the scheme. The general attitude of -the press was that the British Government should have nothing to do -with some of the financial concessions asked. There were a good many -references, all very familiar to a reader of the press attacks during -the tunnel uproar back in the eighties, to "promoters," and the tone of -editorial reaction was fairly well typified by a sarcastic article in -_The Economist_ entitled "Pie Under the Sea." And the _Times_ ran an -editorial declaring snappily that, as the proposals stood, "the light -at the end of the tunnel would be either bright gold for the private -owners of the £20 million of equity capital or Bright Red for the -Anglo-French taxpayer." Then, shortly afterward, the tunnel came under -public attack by Eoin C. Mekie, chairman of Silver City Airways, which -in the years since the Second World War has ferried more than three -hundred thousand cars and a million and a half passengers by air to and -from the Continent. Mekie denounced the tunnel scheme as "commercial -folly" and described it as "a feat of engineering which is already made -obsolete by the speed of modern technical advances." Other attacks were -made, too, from the enthusiasts over the future of Hovercraft, the -heavier-than-air craft, still in the experimental stage, which ride -on a cushion of air; and from, not unexpectedly, Channel shipping and -ferry interests. Then Viscount Montgomery, in a newspaper interview, -returned to the attack on the tunnel on the ground of its undermining -what he called "our island strategy." He also observed in particular, -when asked about the feasibility of blowing the tunnel up in case -of war or threatened war, "The lessons of history show that things -that ought to be blown up never are, as Guy Fawkes discovered." And -Major-General Spears in the spring of 1960 gave fuller vent to his -anti-tunnel views in a pamphlet that he wrote and had circulated -privately. Its general tenor was set by General Spears's assertion that -"the Channel saved us in 1940 and may well save us again," and that -"The British people need no tunnels." And he asked, "Who would have -believed that in the last war the Germans would not have destroyed the -enormously important bridge over the Rhine at Remagen? But they failed -to do so." - -To all such criticism as this, the Channel-tunnel people reacted not -with the kind of broadsides that Sir Edward Watkin would have let -loose in the heyday of the Channel-tunnel controversy but by hiring a -public-relations outfit headed by a man called E. D. O'Brien, a former -publicity director for the Conservative party, who is said to be known -among his colleagues as Champagne Toby. O'Brien's champagne appears to -be weaker stuff than Sir Edward Watkin's; the pro-tunnel publicity his -outfit puts out seems to consist of things like a small booklet called -"Channel Tunnel, the Facts," which an O'Brien assistant has described -as "a sort of child's guide, in Q. and A. form, you know, about the -tunnel." - -As soon as the British press fell on the promoters for making the -demands they did for Government financial guarantees, the promoters -came up with a set of counter-proposals. They offered to finance not -only the tunnel itself but also the terminals and approaches on both -sides; they further proposed leasing the tunnel directly to the two -governments, thus avoiding the earlier requirement of governmental -guarantee of the bonds. - -When the subject of constructing a Channel tunnel will come up for a -decision one way or the other before the British Cabinet and Parliament -again nobody seems willing to predict, and what the Cabinet will decide -nobody seems willing to predict, either. However, D'Erlanger, who -says that he would consider another tunnel thumbs down by the British -Government or Parliament "a negation of progress," is always happy to -talk about the benefits a Channel tunnel would confer upon Europe. -"You have fifty million people on this side of the Channel and two -hundred million plus on the Continental side. If you join them by a -small hyphen, I think it _must_ facilitate trade on both sides," he -says. "I like to think of the tunnel as a kind of engagement ring that -would bind Britain's Outer Seven into a workable marriage with the six -countries of the Common Market. Think of shipping goods from Rome to -Birmingham or from Edinburgh to Bordeaux without breaking bulk, and at -half the cost! It's high time Europe had a manifestation of progress -along the lines of the St. Lawrence Seaway, and I think a Channel -tunnel would be the great civil-engineering feat of the century for -Europe." - -In the meantime, with all the brave words, and all the money poured -into the project, the Channel Tunnel Company still has something of a -phantom air about it. It doesn't have a regular staff—D'Erlanger is a -busy City banker—and it has no real office of its own. D'Erlanger's -banking headquarters are at the investment house of which he is a -partner, Philip Hill, Higginson, Erlangers, Ltd., along Moorgate, -but no Channel Tunnel Company records are kept there. The nearest -thing to a headquarters for the Channel Tunnel Company is a set of -Victorian offices on Broad Street Place, in the City, occupied by a -firm of "secretaries" called W. H. Stentiford & Co. These offices are -reached by a very ancient and slow ironwork-gate lift, and a sign in -the corridor shows that W. H. Stentiford & Co. is the representative -of an astonishing variety of companies, including the Channel Tunnel -Company, Ltd., and a number of outfits with such exotic corporate -names as the Tea Share Trust, Ltd., Uruwira Minerals, Ltd., Dominion -Keep (Klerksdorp, Ltd.), and Klerksdorp Consolidated Goldfields, Ltd. -Inside, amid a clutter of ticking clocks, great ledgers, old safes -emblazoned with peeling coats of arms, great piles of papers, and trays -of teacups, a small staff of round-shouldered retainers toils away -vicariously over the affairs of these far-flung organizations—making -up accounts and annual or quarterly statements, filling out and -recording stock certificates, answering letters, and so on. All this -clerkly activity is presided over by an eminently respectable and -precisely mannered man by the name of P. S. Elliston, who also arranges -board meetings for his many client companies in a room set aside at -Stentiford's for the purpose. Mr. Elliston's organization "took on" -the Channel Tunnel Company in the early forties, and all its annual -meetings since 1947 have been held at Stentiford's, with Mr. Elliston -present in his capacity of representative of his firm of secretaries. -Mr. Elliston finds things changed a bit from the time when the Channel -Tunnel Company first became one of his firm's clients. In those old -days, he says, the whole annual meeting could generally be disposed -of in between five and ten minutes, with only a couple of directors -being present—Mr. Elliston having thoughtfully bought one share of -Channel Tunnel Company stock to enable himself to vote in case no -other shareholder besides a couple of directors could be persuaded to -turn up to make a quorum of three. Now, he says, it may sometimes take -twenty-five minutes or even as long as forty-five minutes to transact -necessary business. As for Channel Tunnel Company stock, it has -fluctuated all the way from sixpence to fifty shillings—its price one -day in 1959 at a time when the company's balance sheet showed a cash -balance of just £161. The price of the stock at the time this book was -written was about twenty-two shillings, and the company's cash in hand -(in 1961 it issued a little more stock to keep going) was £91,351 "and -a few shillings." Owing to the wartime destruction of its records and -the difficulty of tracking down all the old transactions, the Channel -Tunnel Company still doesn't know who all its stockholders are, and, -conversely, there are quite a few people scattered about who probably -aren't aware that they are company stockholders. - -Mr. Elliston describes the last fifteen years or so of the company's -history as containing "several periods where there was very keen -interest" in the tunnel scheme, especially in 1957 and 1958, with -Stentiford's being subjected, he says, to "a persistent spate of -enquiries," including calls from newspaper reporters and letters from -schoolboys asking why the tunnel was never built. - -Some time ago, when I was in England, I decided to take a trip down -to the coast between Folkestone and Dover to the scene of the violent -tunnel controversy of the eighties. I had heard that the shaft of the -old Shakespeare Cliff gallery in which Sir Edward Watkin did so much of -his promoting and entertaining, as well as tunneling, had been sealed -off many years ago, but I was aware that the Abbots Cliff gallery, or -part of it, still existed. Through the good offices of Leo d'Erlanger -and Harold J. B. Harding, the vice-president of the Institution of -Civil Engineers, who has directed many of the latest technical surveys -on the proposed Channel tunnel, I arranged to go down one day from -London to Folkestone and to be taken into the old Abbots Cliff tunnel. -Written permission had to be obtained from the Government for the -visit, and the necessary arrangements had to be made well in advance -with officials of British Railways, the present owner, representing -the Crown, of the coastal lands once the domain of Sir Edward Watkin's -South-Eastern Railway Company. Harding explained to me that since the -tunnel entrance was kept locked up and lay in a not readily accessible -part of the cliffs facing the sea, it would be practical for me to make -the visit only under fairly good weather conditions, and then under -the escort of people equipped with lamps and the means of opening up -the tunnel entrance. "You may get a bit wet and a bit dirty, so don't -wear a good suit," Harding added, and he went on to say that he had -seen to it that I would be shown around the tunnel by a civil engineer -named Kenneth W. Adams, from the district office of British Railways at -Ashford, Kent—Adams being, in Harding's words, "a keen engineer who -has become something of a hobbyist on the old tunnel workings." - -Wearing an old suit, I duly took a train early one fair morning in -autumn, from Charing Cross, and when I got off at Folkestone Central -Station, Adams, a stocky, cheerful man who seemed to be about forty, -was waiting for me. He had a little car waiting outside the station, -and when he got into it, he introduced me to an assistant sitting in -the driver's seat named Jack Burgess. "Jack's grandfather was a surface -worker at the tunnel workings at Shakespeare Cliff," Adams said as -Burgess started the car up. "Jack was just telling me that he remembers -his grandfather telling him, when he was a boy, about Lord Palmerston -coming down to visit the tunnel in 1881. The old chap remembered that -the food that was brought into the tunnel for parties of visitors from -the Lord Warden Hotel at Dover came in hay boxes—that is, in big -wicker boxes interlined with a thick layer of hay to keep the food -warm." - -Burgess drove us through the outer part of Folkestone toward the sea at -a pretty good clip, with the little car buzzing away like a high-speed -sewing machine, and in a very little time, after climbing up a long, -gentle slope by the back of the cliffs, we drew up on the heights of -East Cliff, a kind of promontory within Eastwear Bay, which lies to -the north-east of Folkestone Harbor. There, in two broad curves to the -left and right of us, the precipitous face of the white chalk cliffs -gleamed, like huge ruined walls with grassed-over rubble piled about -their base, in hazy sunlight. Far below us, and stretching away into -the haze, lay the Channel, gray and, for the time being, pretty calm. -A hundred feet or so from where our car stopped was a massive round -stone tower, its sides tapering in toward the top like a child's sand -castle; two similar towers lay some distance from us in the direction -of Folkestone. These, Adams explained, were Martello towers, formerly -cannon-bearing fortifications that were installed in prominent places -all along the Dover-Folkestone coastal area during the invasion scares -early in the nineteenth century to repel surprise landings by the -troops of Napoleon Bonaparte. (The three Martello towers comprised -the main artillery defenses of Folkestone Harbor even as late in the -century as the time of the great tunnel controversy in the eighties.) -Then he pointed to the cliffs stretching to the north-east. "You see -that large white building on top of the cliff almost at the very end of -the bay? That's Abbots Cliff, and the tunnel is at the base of it," he -said. "We'll take you down that way in a couple of minutes, but first -I'd like to show you something that may interest you." - -We walked a short distance down a path by East Cliff to a point where -we could see, as we couldn't previously, the rail line that ran along -the coast, partly through rail tunnels piercing the cliffs, and partly -over the land that rose above their base. Then Adams pointed out to -me something jutting horizontally out of the chalk cliffs a little -above and to the side of the railroad cutting. It was a large and -long-rusted collection of wheels, gears, and cams, all compounded -together into the shape of some fantastic Dadaist engine. "What you -see there is the remains of the last machine ever tried out for boring -a Channel tunnel," Adams said. "That's the Whittaker boring machine, -an electrically driven affair, powered by a steam-driven generator, -and it was tried out here after the First World War. Actually, it was -developed by the Royal Engineers for mining under the German lines, and -in 1919 Sir Percy Tempest, who was chief engineer of the South East & -Chatham Railway—an amalgamation of the South-Eastern Railway and the -London, Chatham & Dover Railway, which in turn, by further amalgamation -with other lines, became the Southern Railway—thought it might do -for the Channel tunnel. In 1919 he asked permission from the Board -of Trade to drive a new heading from the old Number Three ventilating -shaft at the eastern end of Shakespeare Cliff a little way under the -foreshore, and got it, but he changed his mind and decided to try the -machine in the chalk down here. The Whittaker machine cut a tunnel -twelve feet in diameter, and some time between 1921 and 1924 they drove -a heading into the chalk, just at the point where it's sticking out -now, for some four hundred feet. They never quite removed the machine -from the heading when they were finished, but it was maintained right -up to the outbreak of the Second World War, when it became derelict." - -Adams and I walked back to the car. As we did so, he revealed himself -as being pro-tunnel. "It's a tragic thing, this tunnel business, I -think. If the tunnel had been built forty or fifty years ago, just -think of what an asset to Europe it would have been," he said. We -packed ourselves in, and Burgess drove us down a very rough, narrow -road to the level of the railroad line. There, by a maintenance shed, -a small, thin workman was waiting for us. He was wearing an old cloth -peaked cap, a white duffel coat, and rubber knee boots, and by his feet -he had ready-lighted Tilley lamps—similar in appearance to miners' -lamps but operated by kerosene under pressure, like a Primus stove. -Adams and Burgess jumped out of the car, and Burgess unlocked and -opened up the rear trunk. I got out of the car, too. Then the workman, -whom Adams addressed as Jim, disappeared briefly into the shed and came -out with a pile of knee boots, which he began flinging into the car -trunk. "We'll be needing these," Adams remarked to me. Next Jim brought -out an enormous wrench, at least two feet long, and slung that on top -of the protesting rubber boots, and then he came up with an armful of -duffel coats, which he handed around. We put them on and all of us got -into the car; the little workman wordlessly, with a wide gaptoothed -grin, squeezed into the back seat with me and settled back with the -two big lighted Tilley lamps on his lap. The lamps gave off a gentle -roaring sound, like subdued blowtorches, and they gave off heat that -warmed the whole back of the car. - -We drove off down a narrow, steep, tortuously winding, and very rugged -road, through a kind of wilderness of concrete rubble and piles of -old heavy wooden construction beams, toward the base of the cliffs, -and when we finally got there, we continued along the wide top of a -concrete sea wall for a considerable distance until the wall suddenly -narrowed and the car could go no farther. - -We all got out, and Adams, Burgess, and I took off our shoes and put -on the knee boots that Burgess got out of the trunk; and, with Jim and -Burgess leading the way and bearing between them the glowing Tilley -lamps and the giant wrench, we continued on foot along the sea wall, -now as narrow as the sidewalk of a small city street. The chalk cliffs -towered perhaps a couple of hundred feet above us. "The tunnel is about -three-quarters of a mile ahead along the sea wall," Adams remarked -as he walked beside me, and as we went along he explained that his -primary job at British Railways was the design of sea defenses between -Folkestone and Dover to combat erosion. "It's a good job you didn't -pick a later time in the year to visit the tunnel," he went on. "This -sea wall would hardly be negotiable on foot when the water's rough, and -in winter, with the sou'westers blowing in especially, we have some -real shockers." - -After another fifteen minutes or so of walking along an area where the -cliffs rose back beyond a sort of terrace formed by old landslides—the -railway line ran along this terrace in the open—Adams told me that -the tunnel entrance was not far off. A few hundred feet farther on, we -finally reached it—a small recessed place in the grassy rubble at the -base of the cliff terrace and, set into it, a four-foot-square door -of rough, thick wood encased by a frame of very old and very heavy -timbers. The door was hinged with heavy gate hinges and secured not by -a padlock but by a very large metal nut, which Jim now attacked with -his great wrench. - -As he wrestled with it, Adams, smiling, remarked that the entrance -wasn't a very big one, considering the size of the Channel-tunnel -project. "I once brought a Canadian executive, a rather -impressive-looking fellow, down here by request, in '57, I think it -was," he recalled. "It seemed very important to him to inspect the -entrance to the tunnel. When I took him along the sea wall and showed -him this entrance, he took a look at it and just burst out laughing. -I asked him what was up. He went on laughing, and finally he told me -why. He said he was employed by a large American oil company, and that -his company had sent him over here to spy out the possibility of buying -up land for filling stations near the entrance to the proposed Channel -tunnel. Actually, of course, nobody knows precisely where a new tunnel -would come out on the English side, and it would be very doubtful -whether they would make use of any of the old workings." - -The little workman unloosened the nut, and, with various groans -and creaks, the door to the tunnel allowed itself to be pulled and -shouldered open. Then, one by one, we stooped down and entered the -tunnel through the small opening. When my eyes adjusted themselves from -the light of day to the light of the Tilley lamps we had brought with -us, I found that we were standing in a square-timbered heading perhaps -six feet high and about the same in width. The floor, like the roof, -was timbered, and from the roof, as well as from parts of the sides -of the heading, a pale fungus growth drooped down. The atmosphere was -pretty dank. Just inside the entrance, either hanging from big rough -nails protruding from the wooden walls or lying to one side on the -floor, there was a clutter of various objects—rusty chains, augers, -lengths of decaying rope, candles, and a couple of lobster pots, the -presence of which Adams explained to me. "They get washed up from -time to time, and our lads, when they find them, put them in here for -safekeeping," he said. Slowly we made our way into the tunnel. There -was room for a set of narrow-gauge rail tracks, but most of the thin -rails had been torn up, and a number of them lay piled to our right by -the wall. On the left, untracked and abandoned, lay one of the rail -trolleys that obviously had been used for hauling out spoil. The little -rusted wheels on which it rested were of clearly Victorian design, -with spokes elaborately arranged in curlicued fashion. "This is the -access heading we're in," Adams told me as we found our way along, -heads down. "The chalk carted out from the Beaumont boring machine was -taken through here and dumped right into the sea outside the entrance. -But this access heading wasn't the first to be built; it was dug by -hand from the direction in which we're going, from the bottom of a -vertical shaft sunk from the level of the South-Eastern Railway line -seventy-four feet up above this concrete lining we're coming to now. -As you see—" Adams took a Tilley lamp from Burgess and flashed it on -the roof of the concrete lining—"the shaft has been closed up long -ago. Now we'll go on. This first stretch is taking us in a northerly -direction." - -After going a short distance, we came to another concrete lining. This, -Adams said, was to reinforce the tunnel at the point where it passed -underneath the railway line. We went on again, this time walking on a -dirt floor, and then we came to a timbered junction, from which the -tunnel branched off again to the right in the north-east direction that -was originally intended to bring it into line with the gallery at -Shakespeare Cliff, while to the left there was a low-roofed chamber -that probably once housed a siding and a maintenance workshop for the -Beaumont boring machine. Then, walking now on half-rotted planks, in -the warm light of the restlessly moving Tilley lamps, we entered the -circular, unlined tunnel of Lower Chalk—a smooth, light-gray cavern, -seven feet in diameter, that stretched far ahead to disappear into -darkness. Our footing was slippery, and a small stream of water ran -in the direction from which we had come in a rough gutter cut in the -chalk, but the tunnel at this point seemed surprisingly dry for a hole -that had lain unlined for some eighty years, and the stream of water -draining away didn't seem to me to be really any greater than the one -in the Orangeburg pipe that drains seepage from under the cellar of my -summer house in Connecticut. - -We had gone only a little way along the chalk tunnel when Adams, -walking ahead of me, began flashing his light along the wall and -then stopped and motioned me to come and look at the spot where he -had focused his lamp. I did so and saw, cut into the chalk in crude -lettering, the following inscription: - - THIS - TUNNEL - WAS - BUGN - IN - 1880 - WILLIAM SHARP - -However, this was not exactly how the inscription went, for its author, -after finishing it, obviously had decided that "BUGN" didn't look -right, and, being unable to erase the incision, he had had another go -at it, inscribing the second try to one side and partly over the first, -so that the intended "begun" now came out like "BEGUBNUGN." But with -all the crudeness of the inscription, the author had been careful with -the lettering, even to point of conscientiously incising serifs on the -"T"s and "E"s. - -While the light played about the inscription, I could see clearly, on -the tunnel face, the ringlike marks left by individual revolutions of -the cutting head of the Beaumont boring machine. After a few moments we -moved on again, and eventually, after trudging over ground that became -increasingly slippery, we came to a point where some of the chalk -had given way, filling the tunnel about a quarter of the way up with -debris. Adams said that the going got a bit better later on but that we -were likely to find ourselves in water over our knee boots if we went -any farther. At that point, impressed with the sight of all the fallen -rock about and by the realization that we were in a seven-foot hole at -least a quarter of a mile inside a huge cliff on a deserted stretch of -coast, I felt as though I had seen enough. I suddenly realized what a -smart idea Sir Edward Watkin had had in providing visitors with that -champagne lift while they were well under the sea. So we turned back -again and slowly, in silence, made our way out of Sir Edward's first -tunnel. - -When I stepped through the tunnel entrance into the light, it seemed -very noisy outside. Sea gulls were shrieking overhead, and the Channel -waves were roaring and heaving insistently. I had a slight headache, -and I mentioned this to Adams. "Oh, yes, I have the same thing," he -said. "Although the air in the tunnel is remarkably fresh, considering -the length of time it's been locked up and the fact that there's only -one entrance, there isn't quite as much oxygen in it as one might -want." Jim began to lock up the entrance again, and while he was doing -so, Adams suggested that we might see if we could spot the entrance -shaft on the plateau above us. We climbed up the cliffside, and after -a while we located it, a filled-in depression resting in a mass of -bramble bushes. We waded through the bushes and stood over the remains -of Number One shaft, still feeling a bit headachy. As we stood there, -we picked and ate a few blackberries still left on the bushes from -summer. "They're quite good," Adams said. - -After we had had some lunch in Folkestone, Adams suggested that before -I went back to London I might want to take a look at the site of the -old Number Two shaft and the main tunnel at Shakespeare Cliff, even -though the Number Two shaft and the Number Three ventilating shaft had -been long ago closed up. I was agreeable to that, and Burgess drove -us, by way of Dover, to a point along a back road, from which we could -walk to the top of Shakespeare Cliff from the land side. While Burgess -stayed in the little car, Adams and I set off up a long slope to the -cliff head, walking along the edge of a harrowed field, the soil of -which seemed to be riddled with the kind of large flints typical of the -Upper Chalk layer. - -On the way up, Adams told me what had happened to the main tunnel -and shaft after the workings were finally stopped by the Board of -Trade. "Everything stopped dead at the tunnel workings until 1892," -Adams said. "By then, Sir Edward Watkin knew he was beaten on the -Channel tunnel, so he tried a different kind of tunneling, and the -South-Eastern Railway engineers began boring for coal a matter of a few -yards away from the tunnel shaft. They went down to 2,222 feet with -their boring, at which level they met a four-foot seam of good-quality -coal, and the company obtained authority by an act of Parliament to -mine for coal under the foreshore. As for the Channel-tunnel shaft -itself, it was abandoned in 1902 and filled up with breeze—ashes and -slag—from the colliery, and the Number Three ventilation shaft at the -eastern end of Shakespeare Cliff was also filled with breeze in the -same year. But the colliery never paid off any better than the tunnel -project. It ran into trouble around 1907 or 1908, and then the owners -decided they'd have a try at getting iron ore out of the workings, -and so all the mineral mining rights were bought by the Channel Steel -Company, but the iron mining didn't prosper any more than the coal -mining. The Channel Steel Company went into voluntary liquidation in -1952, and all the mining rights passed to the original freeholders, who -are now the British Government." - -Adams and I climbed over a wooden fence stile, and after a couple of -more minutes of uphill walking we arrived at the top of Shakespeare -Cliff. We approached to a point near the edge and kneeled in the tall -grass, buffeted by a strong afternoon wind that struck us squarely in -the face. It was a magnificent view. The Channel lay very far below -us, and although I could not see the coast of France because of the -haze—Adams said that on a fine day anybody could see clearly the -clock tower outside Boulogne—I could see shipping scudding along in -whitecaps in the middle of the Strait. To the left of us, not far away, -lay the Admiralty Pier at Dover, the one that once had the great gun -which the _Illustrated London News_ had imaginatively depicted in the -act of blowing the tunnel entrance to pieces at the first sign of a -French invasion of England through the tunnel. - -Then, on hands and knees, we crawled against the pommeling wind to -the very edge of the cliff, and lying on our stomachs peered straight -down upon the site of the Shakespeare Cliff tunnel. I still had traces -of the headache I had picked up while creeping around in the depths -of the Abbots Cliff tunnel and it was a dizzying change for me now -to peer three hundred feet down a sheer cliff face, but it was worth -it, even though there was nothing so startling to see. Far below us -lay a plateau with a couple of railway sidings on it. There were no -buildings about, and certainly nothing that resembled any trace of a -mine entrance. "British Railways had to build a sea wall around the -whole Shakespeare Cliff area a few years ago because of the erosion -from the Channel, and when we were doing that we cleaned out all the -old mine workings," Adams said. "One of the last buildings to go was a -shed that the old custodian of the works used to live in. His name was -Charlie Gatehouse. He died about ten years ago at the age of ninety. -He had worked as a timberman on both the Abbots Cliff and Shakespeare -Cliff tunnels, and he took up the first sod when they dug the shaft -down here. He used to tell about how one day Mr. Gladstone came down -into the tunnel." - -Then Adams pointed out to me exactly where the entrance to Number Two -shaft had been. It lay by the third rain puddle to the left near one of -the sidings. I enjoyed the thought of having its location fixed in my -mind, and I believe Mr. Adams did, too. We gazed down silently. "Just -imagine, if the Board of Trade hadn't stopped the works, a man might -have been able to go right on to Vladivostock without getting out of -his train," Adams said after a while. And he added earnestly, "But I -think they'll build the tunnel yet." - -Since my visit to the tunnel, the tendency of events has been to -reinforce the brave hopes of Adams and his fellow pro-tunnelers. To be -sure, while even the most dedicated of tunnel promoters may be prone -to his black moments while pondering the nature and the effects of -traditional British insularity—one of the most distinguished, Sir -Ivone Kirkpatrick, the president of the Tunnel Study Group, a while ago -observed with some touch of bitterness that it seemed as though "men -may be flying to the moon before Britons can make a reasonable surface -journey to Paris"—Britain's decision to seek full membership in the -European Common Market, and the agreement of the French and British -Governments to hold official talks on the construction of either a -tunnel or a bridge across the Channel, have given the pro-tunnelers -more solid reason for hope than perhaps has ever existed in the ranks -of these visionaries in a century and a half. In the past, it was -never possible for proponents of the tunnel to advance their cause -with any success so long as their advocacy was not based on the prior -existence of any profound change in Britain's traditional economic and -strategic special and separate place in Europe, or of any change in -the peculiar British sense of being an island people apart. But now -such changes have taken place, or are in the process of taking place. -Britain's strategic position has been profoundly altered by the advent -of nuclear and rocket armaments. Her political and economic position -has been as profoundly altered by the withering away of the British -Empire and by the successful emergence of a new European commonwealth -in the form of the Common Market. And the ancient British sense of -being an island race apart seems to have been steadily eroded by a -strange kind of rootlessness, partly arising out of Britain's altered -place in the world, and as a general accompaniment of the intrusion of -such uninsular influences as the jet airplane, commercial television, -high-powered advertising, expense-account living, and the spread of -installment buying. Notwithstanding all her misgivings on the subject -of committing herself to abandonment of her ancient aloofness from the -Continent, Britain can hardly ignore the implications of the relentless -march of that process once described by the Duke of Wellington over a -century ago in the heyday of the sailing ship, when he observed that -Britain and the Continent were rapidly becoming joined by an "isthmus -of steam." - -Now that so many of the conditions that have made for England's -traditional economic, military, and cultural insularity have gradually -subsided, like the ancient Wealden Island that once lay in what is now -the Strait of Dover, the question of connecting Britain physically -to the Continent is at last in the realm of practical political -possibility. In spite of all her misgivings about the abandonment -of her privileged relationships with the countries of the British -Commonwealth, it seems as though Britain has no choice ahead but to -throw in her lot with the Common Market, which has proved itself to be -such an astonishing success in its four years of existence. - -Since 1958, when the special trade arrangements between the countries -of the European Economic Community went into effect, up to 1960, -their industrial production increased by 22 per cent, while Britain's -industrial production increased only 11 per cent. And it has been -estimated that by 1970 the Gross National Product of the Common Market -countries will double that of 1961. This estimate does not take into -account Britain's joining the Common Market, either; when she does so, -as it seems she must, the Common Market boom will be a spectacular -one; the member countries will then be serving a market of more than -200 million people. Precisely what Britain's entry into the Common -Market would mean in terms of increased commercial intercourse between -Britain and the Continent no one knows, but the increase plainly would -be enormous, and considering this potentiality, proponents of the -Channel tunnel are not backward in claiming that Britain's present -cross-Channel transportation facilities are grossly inadequate to meet -the demands ahead. They are even inadequate, the pro-tunnelers claim, -for coping with Britain's present needs. - -As things stand, some 8 million passengers and about 400,000 vehicles -cross the Channel in a year. Of these, 3.3 million passengers and -about 100,000 vehicles go by air. Most of this traffic crisscrosses -the Channel in the four peak summer months and results in severe -bottlenecks in the existing means of communication. (A motorist who -wishes to take his car abroad either by air or sea-ferry during the -peak season must book a passage some months ahead of time, and if he -can't make it on the assigned date "he runs the risk," as one of the -tunnel promoters has put it, "of being marooned on this island for -several more months.") Even without taking into account Britain's -probable entry into the Common Market, the number of vehicles crossing -Britain and the Continent probably will double itself by 1965. - -The Channel Tunnel Study Group people claim that neither the existing -air nor sea-ferry services are equipped to handle anything like this -potential load. They estimate that without construction of a tunnel, -the British and French Governments, through their nationalized rail and -air lines, will be obliged to spend some $90,000,000 in the next five -years to replace or expand existing transport facilities if they are -to keep up with the increase in cross-Channel traffic expected in that -time without Britain's participation in the Common Market. As for the -capacity of the tunnel, the promoters claim that all the road vehicles -that crossed the Channel in 1960 could easily be carried through the -tunnel in three or four days. As for the transporting of merchandise, -11,000,000 tons of it are now being moved across the Channel in a year, -most of this in bulk form—coal, for example—which it would not be -practical to send through a tunnel. But of this freight, well over a -million tons of nonbulk goods could, the Study Group declares, be sent -by tunnel, and at about half the rates now prevailing. - -Taking into account such economic advantages, the great boon to -tourism that they believe a tunnel would represent, and the intangible -psychological impetus that they claim a fixed link between France -and Britain would give to the dream of a politically as well as -economically united Europe, the pro-tunnelers believe that the -construction of their railway under the Channel would be just about the -greatest thing to happen to Britain in this century. - -The Channel Tunnel Study Group people, as it turned out late last year, -are not alone in their ambitions for a physical connection between -France and Britain. Last fall, when the French and British Governments -decided—on British initiative—to negotiate with each other on a fixed -connection between the two countries, it became clear that a dark horse -had been entered in the Channel sweepstakes with the publicizing of the -new proposal for a cross-Channel bridge made by a new French company -that is headed by Jules Moch, a former French Minister of Interior. -The bridge proposed by the new French company would be a multipurpose -affair of steel capable of carrying not only two railroad lines but -five lanes of motor traffic and even two bicycle tracks. It would -extend between Dover and a point near Calais. Its width would be 115 -feet and its height 230 feet, allowing (as the Tunnel Study Group's -proposed bridge scheme would) ample clearance for the largest ocean -liners afloat. Its length would be 21 miles; it would rest on 164 -concrete piles 65 feet in diameter and sunk 660 feet apart. Motorists -would travel along it, without any speed limit, at a peak rate of -5,000 vehicles an hour, and an average toll of about $22.50 per car. -The bridge would take between four and six years to construct, and as -for the cost, that would run to about $630,000,000—or $266,000,000 -more than the estimated cost of a rail tunnel. Despite some backing -that the new French bridge group appears to have established for its -scheme among French commercial circles, the chances are that the -British Government, as representatives of a maritime nation, will -have a number of objections to this plan for spanning the Channel. -A principal objection—a technical one that has confounded all the -Channel bridge planners from Thomé de Gamond's day onward—is the -hazard to navigation within the Strait of Dover that a bridge would -create. The English Channel is one of the most heavily trafficked sea -lanes in the world, and considering the violent state of wind and sea -within the Strait of Dover for much of the year—as well as the heavy -Channel fogs—insuring safe passage between the piers of such a bridge -for all the thousands of ships that pass through the Strait every year, -in all weathers, would pose formidable problems even in the era of -radar. Also, the Channel-tunnel advocates, who already have considered -a bridge and pretty much rejected the idea because of its high cost, -point to other difficulties standing in the way of the bridge idea—for -example, the requirements of international law, which would make -necessary a special treaty signed by all countries (including Russia) -presently sending ships through the Channel before such an obstruction -to navigation could be constructed; the difficulties, with all the bad -weather, of keeping such an enormous structure in good repair; and -the dangers of Channel gales to light European cars traversing the -bridge. (The French bridge advocates claim that they could reduce the -winds buffeting traffic to a quarter of their intensity by installing -deflectors on the sides of the traffic lanes; to this the tunnel -advocates counter that boxing cars in traffic lanes for some twenty-one -miles would create a psychological sense of confinement that drivers -would find far more intimidating than riding on a train under the -sea.) But the main objection to the bridge is its cost. It could only -be built with the help of substantial government subsidies, and the -experience of the pro-tunnelers is that such subsidies are almost -impossible to obtain. - -Whatever the merits of the two schemes, they are certain to be -considered in quite a different atmosphere now than they were back in -the seventies, when, according to the observations that Sir Garnet -Wolseley subsequently made to Sir Archibald Alison's scientific -committee that investigated the tunnel question, "the tunnel scheme was -... looked upon as fanciful and unfeasible. It was not then regarded -as having entered within the zone or scope of practical undertakings. -No one believed that it would ever be made and, if mentioned, it -always raised a smile, as does now any reference to flying machines -as substitutes for railways." On August 28, 1961, things somehow -seemed to come full circle when the London _Times_, which had started -all the opposition in the press to the tunnel eighty years earlier, -devoted a leading editorial to discussion of the subject of a fixed -connection between France and Britain. The _Times_ started out in -familiar fashion for a tunnel editorial by quoting from Shakespeare's -"This royal throne" speech, but then it went on to concede in stately -fashion that times had changed and that "Britain must soon decide -whether to leap over the wall, to become a part of Europe." The _Times_ -discussed the merits of the latest tunnel and bridge schemes in tones -of expository reasonableness, without committing itself to either one -scheme or the other, and without accusing the would-be moat-crossers, -as of old, of flaunting the will of Providence. And the _Times_ wound -up its editorial on a meaningful note by observing, in reference to -the quotations with which the editorial had been prefaced, that while -Shakespeare had the first words, John Donne deserved the last: - -"No man is an island, entire of itself." - -To which all the tunnel dreamers, after all their years of adversity in -the face of the insular British character, reasonably can say Amen. - - - - -About the Author - - -THOMAS WHITESIDE _was born in England in 1918 at Berwick-upon-Tweed, on -the Scottish border. After working as a newspaperman in Canada, he came -to this country in 1940. He is a United States citizen. After wartime -service with the Office of War Information, he worked as a reporter -for_ The New Republic, _and for some years he has been a writer for_ -The New Yorker. _Mr. Whiteside is married to a French-born wife and has -three children. They live in Greenwich Village. He is the author of_ -The Relaxed Sell, _published in 1954_. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TUNNEL UNDER THE CHANNEL *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Tunnel Under the Channel</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas Whiteside</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 7, 2021 [eBook #66685]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Brian Wilsden, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TUNNEL UNDER THE CHANNEL ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_cover.jpg" alt="Book cover" /> -</div> - -<hr class="r15" /> - -<div class="transnote covernote"> -<p class="center" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;">The cover image was -created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p> -</div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_half_title.png" alt="Running Man" /> -</div> -</div><div class="topspace2"> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_title_merged.jpg" width="600" height="417" alt="Title Page" /> -</div> -</div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h1>The Tunnel Under the Channel</h1> -</div> - -<p class="center">Thomas Whiteside</p> - -<p class="center">SIMON AND SCHUSTER · NEW YORK · 1962</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> -<div class="center"> -ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<br /> -INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION<br /> -IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM<br /> -COPYRIGHT © 1961, 1962 BY THOMAS WHITESIDE<br /> -PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC.<br /> -ROCKEFELLER CENTER, 630 FIFTH AVENUE<br /> -NEW YORK 20, N. Y.<br /> -<br /> -<span class="smaller">MOST OF THE MATERIAL IN THIS BOOK ORIGINATED IN<br /> -<cite>The New Yorker</cite> AS A SERIES OF ARTICLES,<br /> -WHICH HAVE BEEN HERE EXPANDED.</span><br /> -<br /> -FIRST PRINTING<br /> -<br /> -<span class="smaller">LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 62-9744<br /> -MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br /> -BY AMERICAN BOOK-STRATFORD PRESS, INC., NEW YORK</span><br /> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> -<div class="center"><a name="To_Karen_Anne_Jimmy" id="To_Karen_Anne_Jimmy"> -<i>To Karen, Anne, Jimmy</i></a></div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum">[5]</span></p> - -<h2> -<img src="images/i_chapter_1_header.png" alt="One" /> -<br />One -</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="xxxlarge">I</span><span class="smcap">n the -social history</span> of England, the English Channel, -that proud sea passage some three hundred and fifty miles -long, has separated that country from the Continent as by -a great gulf or a bottomless chasm. However, at its narrowest -point, between Dover and Cap Gris-Nez—a distance -of some twenty-one and a half miles—the Channel, despite -any impression that storm-tossed sea travelers across it may -have of yawning profundities below, is actually a body of -water shaped less like a marine chasm than like an extremely -shallow puddle. Indeed, the relationship of depth to breadth -across the Strait of Dover is quite extraordinary, being as -one to five hundred. This relationship can perhaps be most -graphically illustrated by drawing a section profile of the -Channel to scale. If the drawing were two feet long, the -straight line representing the level of the sea and the line -representing the profile of the Channel bottom would be so -close together as to be barely distinguishable from one another. -At its narrowest part, the Channel is nowhere more -than two hundred and sixteen feet deep, and for half of the -distance across, it is less than a hundred feet deep. It is just -this extreme shallowness, in combination with strong winds - -<span class="pagenum">[6]]</span> - -and tidal currents flowing in the Channel neck between the -North Sea and the Atlantic, that makes the seas of the Strait -of Dover so formidable, especially in the winter months. The -weather is so bad during November and December that the -odds of a gale's occurring on any given day are computed -by the marine signal station at Dunkirk at one in seven, and -during the whole year there are only sixty periods in which -the weather remains decent in the Channel through a whole -day. Under these difficult conditions, the passage of people -traveling across the Channel by ferry between England and -France is a notoriously trying one; the experience has been -mentioned in print during the last hundred years in such -phrases as "that fearful ordeal," "an hour and a half's torture," -and "that unspeakable horror." Writing in the <cite>Revue -des Deux Mondes</cite> in 1882, a French writer named Valbert -described the trip from Dover to Calais as "two centuries -... of agony." Ninety-odd years ago, an article dealing -with the Channel passage, in <cite>The Gentleman's Magazine</cite>, -asserted that hundreds of thousands of people crossing the -Strait each year suffered in a manner that beggared description. -"Probably there is no other piece of travelling in civilized -countries, where, within equal times, so much suffering -is endured; certainly it would be hard to find another voyage -of equal length which is so much feared," the author said, -and he went on to report that only one day out of four was -calm, on the average, while about three days in every eight -were made dreadful to passengers by heavy weather. He concluded, -with feeling, "What wonder that, under such circumstances, -patriotism often fails to survive; and that if -any wish is felt in mid-Channel, it is that, after all, England -was not an island."</p> - -<p>How many Englishmen, their loyalty having been subjected -to this strain, might express the same wish upon safely -gaining high ground again is a question the writer in <cite>The - -<span class="pagenum">[7]</span> - -Gentleman's Magazine</cite> did not venture to discuss. However, -there is no question about the persistence with which, during -the past century at least, cross-Channel ferry passengers have -spoken about or written about the desirability of some sort -of dry-land passage between England and France. Engineers -have been attracted to the idea of constructing such a passage -for at least a hundred and fifty years. During that time, -they have come up with proposals for crossing the Channel -by spanning it with great bridges, by laying down submersible -tubes resting on the sea bottom or floating halfway between -sea bed and sea level, or even by using transports shaped like -enormous tea wagons, whose wheels would travel along rails -below sea level and whose platforms would tower high above -the highest waves. But more commonly than by any other -means, they have proposed to do away with the hazards and -hardships of the Channel boat crossing by boring a traffic -tunnel under the rock strata that lie at conveniently shallow -depths under sea level. The idea of a Channel tunnel, at once -abolishing seasickness and connecting England with the Continent -by an easy arterial flow of goods and travelers, always -has had about it a quality of grand simplicity—the simplicity -of a very large extension of an easily comprehended principle; -in this case, digging a hole—that has proved irresistible -in appeal to generations not only of engineers but of visionaries -and promoters of all kinds.</p> - -<p>The tunnel seems always to have had a capacity to arouse -in its proponents a peculiarly passionate and unquenchable -enthusiasm. Men have devoted their adult lives to promoting -the cause of the tunnel, and such a powerful grip does the -project seem to have had on the imagination of its various -designers that just to look at some of their old drawings—depicting, -for example, down to the finest detail of architectural -ornamentation, ventilation stations for the tunnel sticking -out of the surface of the Channel as ships sail gracefully - -<span class="pagenum">[8]</span> - -about nearby—one might almost think that the tunnel was -an accomplished reality, and the artist merely a conscientious -reporter of an existing scene. Such is the minute detail in -which the tunnel has been designed by various people that -eighty-six years ago the French Assembly approved a tunnel -bill that specified the price of railway tickets for the Channel-tunnel -journey, and even contained a clause requiring second-class -carriages to be provided with stuffed seats rather than -the harder accommodations provided for third-class passengers. -And an Englishman called William Collard, who died -in 1943, after occupying himself for thirty years with the -problem of the Channel tunnel, in 1928 wrote and published -a book on the subject that went so far as to work out a time-table -for Channel-tunnel trains between Paris and London, -complete with train and platform numbers and arrival and -departure times at intermediate stations in Kent and northern -France. As for the actual engineering details, a Channel -tunnel has been the subject of studies that have ranged from -collections of mere rough guesses to the most elaborate engineering, -geological, and hydrographic surveys carried out -by highly competent civil-engineering companies. Interestingly -enough, ever since the days, a century or so ago, when -practical Victorian engineers began taking up the problem, -the technical feasibility of constructing a tunnel under the -Channel has never really been seriously questioned. Yet, -despite effort piled on effort and campaign mounted on campaign, -over all the years, by engineers, politicians, and promoters, -nobody has quite been able to push the project -through. Up to now, every time the proponents of a tunnel -have tried to advance the scheme, they have encountered a -difficulty harder to understand, harder to identify, and, indeed, -harder to break through than any rock stratum.</p> - -<p>The difficulty seems to lie in the degree to which, among -Englishmen, the Channel has been not only a body of water - -<span class="pagenum">[9]</span> - -but a state of mind. Because of the prevalence of this curious -force, the history of the scheme to put a tunnel below the -Channel has proved almost as stormy as the Channel waves -themselves. Winston Churchill, in an article in the London -<cite>Daily Mail</cite>, wrote in 1936, "There are few projects against -which there exists a deeper and more enduring prejudice than -the construction of a railway tunnel between Dover and -Calais. Again and again it has been brought forward under -powerful and influential sponsorship. Again and again it has -been prevented." Mr. Churchill, who could never be accused -of lacking understanding of the British character, was obliged -to add that he found the resistance to the tunnel "a mystery." -Some thirty-five times between 1882 and 1950 the subject of -the Channel tunnel was brought before Parliament in one -form or another for discussion, and ten bills on behalf of the -project have been rejected or set aside. On several occasions, -the Parliamentary vote on the tunnel has been close enough -to bring the tunnel within reach of becoming a reality, and -in the eighties the construction of pilot tunnels for a distance -under the sea from the English and French coasts was even -started. But always the tunnel advocates have had to give -way before persistent opposition, and always they have had -to begin their exertions all over again. Successive generations -of Englishmen have argued with each other—and with the -French, who have never showed any opposition to a Channel -tunnel—with considerable vehemence. The ranks of pro-tunnel -people have included Sir Winston Churchill (who once -called the British opposition to the tunnel "occult"), Prince -Albert, and, at one point, Queen Victoria; and the people -publicly lining themselves up with the anti-tunnel forces have -included Lord Randolph Churchill (Sir Winston's father), -Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Professor Thomas -Huxley, and, more recently, First Viscount Montgomery of -Alamein. Queen Victoria, once pro-tunnel, later turned anti-tunnel; - -<span class="pagenum">[10]</span> - -her sometime Prime Minister, William E. Gladstone, -took an anti-tunnel position at one period when he was in -office, and later, out of it, turned pro-tunnel. Throughout its -stormy history the tunnel project has had the qualities of -fantasy and nightmare—a thing of airy grace and claustrophobic -horror; a long, bright kaleidoscope of promoters' -promises and a cavern resounding with Cyclopean bellowing. -Proponents of the tunnel have called it an end to seasickness, -a boon to peace, international understanding, and trade; and -they have hailed it as potentially the greatest civil-engineering -feat of their particular century. Its opponents have referred -to it sharply as "a mischievous project," and they -have denounced it as a military menace that would have enabled -the French (or Germans) to use it as a means of invading -England—the thought of which, in 1914, caused one -prominent English anti-tunneler, Admiral Sir Algernon de -Horsey, publicly to characterize as "unworthy of consideration" -the dissenting views of pro-tunnelers, whom he contemptuously -referred to as "those poor creatures who have -no stomach for an hour's sea passage, and who think retention -of their dinners more important than the safety of their -country." Over the years, anti-tunnel forces have used as ammunition -an extraordinary variety of further arguments, -which have ranged from objections about probable customs -difficulties at the English and French ends of the tunnel to -suspicions that a Channel tunnel would make it easier for international -Socialists to commingle and conspire.</p> - -<p>Behind all these given reasons, no matter how elaborate or -how special they might be, there has always lurked something -else, a consideration more subtle, more elusive, more profound, -and less answer able than any specific objections to the -construction of a Channel tunnel—the consideration of England's -traditional insular position, the feeling that somehow, -if England were to be connected by a tunnel with the - -<span class="pagenum">[11]</span> - -Continent, the peculiar meaning, to an Englishman, of being -English would never be quite the same again. It is this feeling, -no doubt, that in 1882 motivated an article on the tunnel, -in so sober a publication as <cite>The Solicitors' Journal</cite>, to -express about it an uneasiness bordering on alarm, on the -ground that, if successful, the construction of a tunnel would -"effect a change in the natural geographical condition of -things." And it is no doubt something of the same feeling -that prompted Lord Randolph Churchill, during a speech -attacking a bill for a Channel tunnel before the House of -Commons in 1889—the bill was defeated, of course—to observe -skillfully that "the reputation of England has hitherto -depended upon her being, as it were, <i xml:lang="la"> virgo intacta</i>."</p> - -<p>If the proponents and promoters of the tunnel have never -quite succeeded in putting their project across in all the -years, they have never quite given up trying, either; and now, -in a new strategic era of nuclear rockets, a new era of transport -in which air ferries to the Continent carry cars as well -as passengers, and a new era of trade, marked by the emergence -and successful growth of the European Economic Community, -or Common Market, the pro-tunnel forces have been -at it again, in what one of the leading pro-tunnelers has -called "a last glorious effort to get this thing through." This -time they have encountered what they consider to be the most -encouraging kind of progress in the entire history of the -scheme. In April, 1960, an organization called the Channel -Tunnel Study Group announced, in London, a new series of -proposals for a Channel tunnel, based on a number of recent -elaborate studies on the subject. The proposals called for -twin parallel all-electric railway tunnels, either bored or immersed, -with trains that would carry passengers and transport, -in piggyback fashion, cars, buses, and trucks. The -double tunnel, if of the immersed kind, would be 26 miles long -between portals. A bored tunnel, as planned, would be 32 miles - -<span class="pagenum">[12]</span> - -long and would be by far the longest traffic tunnel of either -the underwater or under-mountain variety in the world. The -longest continuous subaqueous traffic tunnel in existence is -the rail tunnel under the Mersey, connecting Liverpool and -Birkenhead, a distance of 2.2 miles; the longest rail tunnel -through a mountain is the Simplon Tunnel, 12.3 miles in -length. The Channel tunnel would run between the areas of -Sangatte and Calais on the French side, and between Ashford -and Folkestone on the English side. Trains would travel -through it at an average speed of 65 miles an hour, reaching -87 miles an hour in some places, and at rush hours they would -be capable of running 4,200 passengers and 1,800 vehicles on -flatcars every hour in each direction. While a true vehicular -tunnel could also be constructed, the obviously tremendous -problems of keeping it safely ventilated at present make this -particular project, according to the engineers, prohibitively -expensive to build and maintain. The train journey from -London to Paris via the proposed tunnel would take four -hours and twenty minutes; the passenger trains would pass -through the tunnel in about thirty minutes. Passengers would -pay 32 shillings, or $4.48–$2.92 cheaper than the cost of a -first-class passenger ticket on the Dover-Calais sea-ferry—to -ride through the tunnel; the cost of accompanied small -cars would be $16.48, a claimed 30 per cent less than a comparable -sea-ferry charge. The tunnel would take four to five -years to build, and the Study Group estimated that, including -the rail terminals at both ends, it would cost approximately -$364,000,000.</p> - -<p>All that the Study Group, which represents British, French -and American commercial interests, needs to go ahead with -the project and turn it into a reality is—besides money, and -the Study Group seems to be confident that it can attract -that—the approval of the British and French Governments -of the scheme. For all practical purposes, the French - -<span class="pagenum">[13]</span> - -Government never has had any objection to a fixed installation -linking both sides of the Channel, and as far as the official -British attitude is concerned, when the British Government -announced, in July, 1961, that it would seek full membership -in the European Common Market, most of the tunnel people -felt sure that the forces of British insularity which had hindered -the development of a tunnel for nearly a century at -last had been dealt a blow to make them reel. But what raised -the pro-tunnelers' excitement to the greatest pitch of all was -the decision of the French and British Governments, last -October, to hold discussions on the problem of building -either a bridge or a tunnel. When these discussions got -under way last November, the main question before the negotiators -was the economic practicality of such a huge undertaking.</p> - -<p>Yet, with all the encouragement, few of the pro-tunnelers -in England seem willing to make a flat prediction that the -British Government will actively support the construction of -a tunnel. They have been disappointed too often. Then again, -despite the generally high hopes that this time the old strategic -objections to the construction of a tunnel have been -pretty well forgotten, pro-tunnelers are well aware that a -number of Englishmen with vivid memories of 1940 are still -doubtful about the project. "The Channel saved us last time, -even in the age of the airplane, didn't it?" one English barrister -said a while ago, in talking of his feelings about building -the Channel tunnel. The tunnel project has the open -enmity of Viscount Montgomery, who has made repeated attacks -on it and who in 1960 demanded, in a newspaper -interview, that before the Government took any stand on -behalf of such a project, "The British people as a whole -should be consulted and vote on the Channel tunnel as part -of a General-Elections program." And, to show that the -spirit of the anti-tunnelers has not lost its resilience, - -<span class="pagenum">[14]</span> - -Major-General Sir Edward L. Spears, in the correspondence columns -of the London <cite>Times</cite> in April of that same year, -denounced the latest Channel-tunnel scheme as "a plan which -will not only cost millions of public money, but will let loose -on to our inadequate roads eighteen hundred more vehicles -an hour, each driven by a right-of-the-road driver in a -machine whose steering wheel is on the left."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum">[15]</span></p> -<h2> -<img src="images/i_chapter_2_header.png" alt="Two" /> -<br />Two -</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="xxxlarge">T</span><span class="smcap">he first -scheme</span> for the construction of a tunnel beneath the English -Channel was put forward in France, in 1802, by a mining engineer named -Albert Mathieu, who that year displayed plans for such a work in -Paris, at the Palais du Luxembourg and the École Nationale Supérieure -des Mines. Mathieu's tunnel, divided into two lengths totaling about -eighteen and a half miles, was to be illuminated by oil lamps and -ventilated at intervals by chimneys projecting above the sea into the -open air, and its base was to be a paved way over which relays of -horses would gallop, pulling coachloads of passengers and mail between -France and England in a couple of hours or so of actual traveling time, -with changes of horses being provided at an artificial island to be -constructed in mid-Channel. Mathieu managed to have his project brought -to the attention of Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul, who was -sufficiently impressed with it to bring it to the attention of Charles -James Fox during a personal meeting of the two men during the Peace of -Amiens. Fox described it as "one of the great enterprises we can now -undertake together." But the project got no further than this talking -stage. In 1803, a Frenchman named de Mottray came - -<span class="pagenum">[16]</span> - -up with another proposal for creating a passage underneath -the Channel. It consisted of laying down sections of a long, -submerged tube on top of the sea bed between England and -France, the sections being linked together in such a way as -to form a watertight tunnel. However, Mottray's project -petered out quickly, too, and the subject of an undersea -connection between the two countries lay dormant until 1833, -when it attracted the attention of a man named Aimé Thomé -de Gamond, a twenty-six-year-old French civil engineer and -hydrographer of visionary inclinations.</p> - -<p>Thomé de Gamond was to turn into an incomparably zealous and -persistent projector of ways in which people could cross between -England and France without getting wet or seasick; he devoted himself -to the problem for no less than thirty-four years, and had no -hesitation in exposing himself to extraordinary physical dangers in -the course of his researches. Unlike the plans of his predecessors, -Thomé de Gamond's were based upon fairly systematic hydrographic or -geological surveys of the Channel area. In 1833 he made the first of -these surveys by taking marine soundings to establish a profile of the -sea bottom in a line between Calais and Dover; on the basis of this, -he drew up, in 1834, a plan for a submerged iron tube that was to be -laid down in prefabricated sections on the bed of the Strait of Dover -and then lined with masonry, the irregular bottom of the sea meanwhile -having been prepared to receive the tube through the leveling action -of a great battering-ram and rake operated from the surface by boat. -By 1835, Thomé de Gamond modified this scheme by eliminating the -prefabricated tube in favor of a movable hydrographic shield that would -slowly advance across the Channel bottom, leaving a masonry tube behind -it as it progressed. But the rate of progress, he calculated, would be -slow; the work was to take thirty years to complete, or fifteen years -if work began on two shores - -<span class="pagenum">[17]</span> - -simultaneously. Thomé de Gamond moved on to schemes for other ways -of crossing the Channel, and between 1835 and 1836 he turned out, -successively, detailed plans for five types of cross-Channel bridges. -They included a granite-and-steel bridge of colossal proportions, and -with arches "higher than the cupola of St. Paul's, London," which was -to be built between Ness Corner Point and Calais; a flat-bottomed -steam-driven concrete-and-stone ferryboat, of such size as to -constitute "a true floating island," which would travel between two -great piers each jutting out five miles into the Channel between Ness -Corner Point and Cap Blanc-Nez; and a massive artificial isthmus of -stone, which would stretch from Cap Gris-Nez to Dover and block the -neck of the English Channel except for three transverse cuttings -spanned by movable bridges, which Thomé de Gamond allowed across his -work for the passage of ships. Thomé de Gamond was particularly fond -of his isthmus scheme. He traveled to London and there promoted it -vigorously among interested Englishmen during the Universal Exhibition -of 1851, but he reluctantly abandoned it because of objections to its -high estimated cost of £33,600,000 and to what he described as "the -obstinate resistance of mariners, who objected to their being obliged -to ply their ships through the narrow channels."</p> - -<p>Such exasperating objections to joining England and France above -water sent Thomé de Gamond back to the idea of doing the job under the -sea, and between 1842 and 1855 he made various energetic explorations -of the Channel area in an attempt to determine the feasibility of -driving a tunnel through the rock formations under the Strait. -Geological conditions existing in the middle of the Strait were, up to -that time, almost entirely a matter of surmise, based on observations -made on the British and French sides of the Channel, and in the process -of finding out more about them, - -<span class="pagenum">[18]</span> - -Thomé de Gamond decided to descend in person to the bottom of the -Channel to collect geological specimens. In 1855, at the age of -forty-eight, he had the hardihood to make a number of such descents, -unencumbered by diving equipment, in the middle of the Strait. Naked -except for wrappings that he wound about his head to keep in place pads -of buttered lint he had plastered over his ears, to protect them from -high water pressure, he would plunge to the bottom of the Channel, -weighted down by bags of flints and trailing a long safety line -attached to his body, and a red distress line attached to his left arm, -from a rowboat occupied also by a Channel pilot, a young assistant, -and his own daughter, who went along to keep watch over him. On the -deepest of these descents, at a point off Folkestone, Thomé de Gamond, -having put a spoonful of olive oil into his mouth as a lubricant that -would allow him to expel air from his lungs without permitting water -at high pressure to force its way in, dived down weighted by four bags -of flints weighing a total of 180 pounds. About his waist he wore a -belt of ten inflated pig's bladders, which were to pull him rapidly -to the surface after he had scooped up his geological specimen from -the Channel bed and released his ballast, and, using this system, he -actually touched bottom at a depth of between 99 and 108 feet. His -ascent from this particular dive was not unremarkable, either; in an -account of it, he wrote that just after he had left the bottom of the -Channel with a sample of clay</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>... I was attacked by voracious fish, which -seized me by the legs and arms. One of them bit -me on the chin, and would at the same time have -attacked my throat if it had not been preserved -by a thick handkerchief.... I was fortunate -enough not to open my mouth, and I reappeared -on top of the water after being immersed - -<span class="pagenum">[19]</span> - -fifty-two seconds. My men saw one of the monsters -which had assailed me, and which did not -leave me until I had reached the surface. They -were conger eels.</p></blockquote> - -<p>Thomé de Gamond's geological observations, although -they were certainly sketchy by later standards, were enough -to convince him of the feasibility of a mined tunnel under the -Channel, and in 1856 he drew up plans for such a work. This -was to be a stone affair containing a double set of railroad -tracks. It was to stretch twenty-one miles, from Cap Gris-Nez -to Eastwear Point, and from these places was to connect, -by more than nine miles at each end of sloping access -tunnels, with the French and British railway systems. The -junctions of the sloping access tunnels and the main tunnel -itself were to be marked by wide shafts, about three hundred -feet deep, at the bottom of which travelers would encounter -the frontier stations of each nation. The line of the main -tunnel was to be marked above the surface by a series of -twelve small artificial islands made of stone. These were to -be surmounted with lighthouses and were to contain ventilating -shafts connecting with the tunnel. Thomé de Gamond -prudently provided the ventilation shafts in his plans with -sea valves, so that in case of war between England and -France each nation would have the opportunity of flooding -the tunnel on short notice. The tunnel was designed to cross -the northern tip of the Varne, a narrow, submerged shelf -that lies parallel to the English coast about ten miles off -Folkestone, and so close to the surface that at low tide it is -only about fifteen feet under water at its highest point. -Thomé de Gamond planned to raise the Varne above water -level, thus converting it into an artificial island, by building -it up with rocks and earth brought to the spot in ships. -Through this earth, engineers would dig a great shaft down - -<span class="pagenum">[20]</span> - -to the level of the tunnel, so that the horizontal mining of the -tunnel as a whole could be carried on from four working -faces simultaneously, instead of only two. The great shaft -was also to serve as a means of ventilating the tunnel and -communicating with it from the outside, and around its apex -Thomé de Gamond planned, with a characteristically grand -flourish, an international port called the Étoile de Varne, -which was to have four outer quays and an interior harbor, -as well as amenities such as living quarters for personnel and -a first-class lighthouse. As for the shaft leading down to the -railway tunnel, according to alternate versions of Thomé -de Gamond's plan, it was to be at least 350 feet—and possibly -as much as 984 feet—in diameter, and 147 feet deep; -and, according to a contemporary account in the Paris newspaper -<cite>La Patrie</cite>, "an open station [would be] formed as -spacious as the court of the Louvre, where travelers might -halt to take air after running a quarter of an hour under -the bottom of the Strait."</p> - -<p>From the bottom of this deep station, trains might also -ascend by means of gently spiraling ramps to the surface of -the Étoile de Varne, <cite>La Patrie</cite> reported. The newspaper went -on to invite its readers to contemplate the panorama at -sea level:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Imagine a train full of travelers, after having -run for fifteen minutes in the bowels of the earth -through a splendidly lighted tunnel, halting -suddenly under the sky, and then ascending to -the quays of this island. The island, rising in -mid-sea, is furnished with solid constructions, -spacious quays garnished with the ships of all -nations; some bound for the Baltic or the Mediterranean, -others arriving from America or India. -In the distance to the North, her silver - -<span class="pagenum">[21]</span> - -cliffs extending to the North, reflected in the -sun, is white Albion, once separated from all the -world, now become the British Peninsula. To -the South ... is the land of France.... Those -white sails spread in the midst of the Straits are -the fishing vessels of the two nations.... Those -rapid trains which whistle at the bottom of the -subterranean station are from London or Paris -in three or four hours.</p></blockquote> - -<p>In the spring of 1856, Thomé de Gamond obtained an audience -with Napoleon III and expounded his latest plan to him. -The Emperor reacted with interest and told the engineer -that he would have a scientific commission look into the matter -"as far as our present state of science allows." The commission -found itself favorable to the idea of the work in -general but lacking a good deal of necessary technical information, -and it suggested that some sort of preliminary agreement -between the British and French Governments on the -desirability of the tunnel ought to be reached before a full -technical survey was made. Encouraged by the way things -seemed to be going, Thomé de Gamond set about promoting -his scheme more energetically than ever. He obtained a promise -of collaboration from three of Britain's most eminent -engineers—Robert Stephenson, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, -and Joseph Locke—and in 1858 he traveled to London to -advance the cause of the tunnel among prominent people and -to promote it in the press. Leading journals were receptive -to the idea. An article in the <cite>Illustrated London News</cite> referred -to the proposed tunnel as "this great line of junction," -and said that it would put an end to the commercial isolation -that England was being faced with by the creation on the -Continent of a newly unified railway system that was making -it possible to ship goods from Central to Western Europe - -<span class="pagenum">[22]</span> - -without breaking bulk. The article added that the creation of -the tunnel</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>... would still preserve for this country for the future -that maritime isolation which formed its -strength throughout the past; for the situation -of the tunnel beneath the bed of the sea would -enable the government on either coast, in case -of war, as a means of defense, to inundate it -immediately.... According to the calculations -of the engineer, the tunnel might be completely -filled with water in the course of an hour, and -afterwards three days would be required, with -the mutual consent of the two Governments, to -draw off the water, and reestablish the traffic.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Thomé de Gamond's visit to England was climaxed by a -couple of interviews on the subject of the Channel tunnel that -he obtained with Prince Albert, who supported the idea with -considerable enthusiasm and even took up the matter in private -with Queen Victoria. The Queen, who was known to suffer -dreadfully from seasickness, told Albert, who relayed the -message to Thomé de Gamond, "You may tell the French engineer -that if he can accomplish it, I will give him my blessing -in my own name and in the name of all the ladies of -England." However, in a discussion Thomé de Gamond had -earlier had with Her Majesty's Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, -who was present at one of the engineer's interviews -with Albert, the idea of the tunnel was not so well received. -The engineer found Palmerston "rather close" on the subject. -"What! You pretend to ask us to contribute to a work -the object of which is to shorten a distance which we find already -too short!" Thomé de Gamond quoted him as exclaiming -when the tunnel project was mentioned. And, according - -<span class="pagenum">[23]</span> - -to an account by the engineer, when Albert, in the presence of -both men, spoke favorably of the benefits to England of a -passage under the Channel, Lord Palmerston "without losing -that perfectly courteous tone which was habitual with him" -remarked to the Prince Consort, "You would think quite -differently if you had been born on this island."</p> - -<p>While Thomé de Gamond was occupied with his submarine-crossing -projects, other people were producing their own particular -tunnel schemes. Most of them seem to have been for -submerged tubes, either laid down directly on the sea bed or -raised above its irregularities by vertical columns to form -a sort of underwater elevated railway. Perhaps the most -ornamental of these various plans was drawn up by a Frenchman -named Hector Horeau, in 1851. It called for a prefabricated -iron tube containing a railway to be laid across the -Channel bed along such judiciously inclined planes as to allow -his carriages passage through them without their having -to be drawn by smoke-bellowing locomotives—a suffocatingly -real problem that most early Channel-tunnel designers, including, -apparently, Thomé de Gamond, pretty well ignored. -The slope given to Horeau's underground railway was to enable -the carriages to glide down under the Channel from one -shoreline with such wonderful momentum as to bring them to -a point not far from the other, the carriages being towed the -rest of the way up by cables attached to steam winches operated -from outside the tunnel exit. The tunnel itself would -be lighted by gas flames and, in daytime, by thick glass skylights -that would admit natural light filtering down through -the sea. The line of the tube was to be marked, across the surface -of the Channel, by great floating conical structures resembling -pennanted pavilions in some medieval tapestry. The -pavilions were to be held in place by strong cables anchored -to the Channel bottom; they were also to contain marine -warning beacons. This project never got under the ground.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[24]</span></p> - -<p>In 1858, an attempt to assassinate Napoleon III brought -France into the Italian war against Austria, and when word -spread in France that the assassin's bombs had been made -in Birmingham, a chill developed between the French and -British Governments. This led to a wave of fear in England -that another Napoleon might try a cross-Channel invasion. -All this froze out Thomé de Gamond's tunnel-promoting -for several years. He did not try again until 1867, when -he exhibited a set of revised plans for his Varne tunnel at the -Universal Exhibition in Paris. In doing so he concluded that -he had pushed the cause of the tunnel about to the limit of -his personal powers. Thirty-five years of work devoted to -the problem had cost him a moderate personal fortune, and -he was obliged to note in presenting his plan that "the work -must now be undertaken by collective minds well versed in the -physiology of rocks and the workings of subterranean deposits." -After that, Thomé de Gamond retired into the background, -squeezed out, it may be, by other tunnel promoters. -In 1875, an article in the London <cite>Times</cite> that mentioned his -name in passing reported that he was "living in humble circumstances, -his daughter supporting him by giving lessons on -the piano." He died in the following year.</p> - -<p>Although Thomé de Gamond's revised plan of 1867 came -to nothing in itself, it did cause renewed talk about a Channel -tunnel. The new spirit of free trade was favorable to it among -Europeans, and everybody was being greatly impressed with -reports of the striking progress on various great European -engineering projects of the time that promised closer communication -between nations—the successful cutting of the -Isthmus of Suez, the near completion of the 8.1-mile-long -Mount Cenis rail tunnel, and the opening, only a few years -previously, of the 9.3-mile-long St. Gotthard Tunnel, for example. -Hardly any great natural physical barriers between -neighboring nations seemed beyond the ability of the great - -<span class="pagenum">[25]</span> - -nineteenth-century engineers to bridge or breach, and to -many people it appeared logical enough that the barrier of -the Dover Strait should have its place on the engineers' list -of conquests. In this generally propitious atmosphere, an -Englishman named William Low took up where Thomé de -Gamond left off. Shortly after the Universal Exhibition, Low -came up with a Channel tunnel scheme based principally upon -his own considerable experience as an engineer in charge of -coal mines in Wales. Low proposed the creation of a pair -of twin tunnels, each containing a single railway track, and -interconnected at intervals by short cross-passages. The -idea was a technically striking one, for it aimed at making -the tunnels, in effect, self-ventilating by making use of -the action of a train entering a tunnel to push air in front of -it and draw fresh air in behind itself. According to Low's -scheme, this sort of piston action, repeated on a big scale by -the constant passage of trains bound in opposite directions -in the two tunnels, was supposed to keep air moving along -each of the tunnels and between them through the cross-passages -in such a way as to allow for its steady replenishment -through the length of the tunnels. With modifications, Low's -concept of a double self-ventilating tunnel forms the basis for -the plan most seriously advanced by the Channel Tunnel -Study Group in 1960.</p> - -<p>After showing his plans to Thomé de Gamond, who approved -of them, Low obtained the collaboration of two other -Victorian engineers—Sir John Hawkshaw, who in 1865 and -1866 had had a number of test borings made by a geologist -named Hartsink Day in the bed of the Channel in the areas -between St. Margaret's Bay, just east of Dover, and Sangatte, -just north-east of Calais, and had become convinced -that a Channel tunnel was a practical possibility in geological -terms; and Sir James Brunlees, an engineer who had helped -build the Suez Canal. In 1867, an Anglo-French committee of - -<span class="pagenum">[26]</span> - -Channel-tunnel promoters submitted a scheme for a Channel -tunnel based on Low's plan to a commission of engineers under -Napoleon III, and the promoters asked for an official -concession to build the tunnel. The members of the commission -were unanimous in regarding the scheme as a workable -one, although they balked at an accompanying request of -the promoters that the British and French Governments each -guarantee interest on a million sterling, which would be -raised privately, to help get the project under way, and took -no action. But apart from the question of money the promoters -were encouraged. In 1870 they persuaded the French -Government officially to ask the British Government what -support it would be willing to give to the proposed construction -of a Channel railway tunnel. Consideration of the question -in Whitehall got sidetracked for a while by the outbreak -of the Franco-Prussian war in the same year, but in 1872, -after further diplomatic enquiries by the French Government, -the British Government eventually replied that it found -no objection "in principle" to a Channel tunnel, provided it -was not asked to put up money or guarantee of any kind in -connection with it and provided that ownership of the tunnel -would not be a perpetual private monopoly. In the same year, -a Channel Tunnel Company was chartered in England, with -Lord Richard Grosvenor, chairman of the London, Chatham -& Dover Railway, at its head, and with Hawkshaw, Low, and -Brunlees as its engineers. The tunnel envisioned by the company -would stretch from Dover to Sangatte, and its cost, -including thirty-three miles of railway that would connect -on the English side with the London, Chatham & Dover and -the South-Eastern Railways, and on the French side with the -Chemin de Fer du Nord, would be £10,000,000. Three years -later, the English company sought and obtained from Parliament -temporary powers to buy up private land at St. Margaret's -Bay, in Kent, for the purpose of going ahead with - -<span class="pagenum">[27]</span> - -experimental tunneling work there. At the same time, a newly formed -French Channel Tunnel Company backed by the House of Rothschild and -headed by an engineer named Michel Chevalier obtained by act of the -French legislature permission from the French Government to start work -on a tunnel from the French side at an undetermined point between -Boulogne and Calais, and a concession to operate the French section of -the tunnel for ninety-nine years. The <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">cahier -des charges</i> of the French tunnel bill dealt in considerable detail -with the terms under which the completed tunnel was to be run, down -to providing a full table of tariffs for the under-Channel railroad. -Thus, a first-class passenger riding through the tunnel in an enclosed -carriage furnished with windows would be charged fifty centimes per -kilometre. Freight rates were established for such categories as -furniture, silks, wine, oysters, fresh fish, oxen, cows, pigs, goats, -and horse-drawn carriages with or without passengers inside.</p> - -<p>The greatest uncertainty facing the two companies, now -that they had the power to start digging toward each other's -working sites, consisted of their lack of foreknowledge of -geological obstacles they might encounter in the rock masses -lying between the two shores at the neck of the Channel. -However, the companies' engineers had substantial reasons for believing -that, in general, the region and stratum into which they planned -to take the tunnel were peculiarly suited to their purpose. Their -belief was based on a rough reconstruction—a far more detailed -reconstruction is available nowadays, of course—of various -geological events occurring in the area before there ever was a -Channel. A hundred million years ago, in the Upper Cretaceous period -of the Mesozoic era, a great part of southern England, which had been -connected at its easterly end with the Continental land mass, was -inundated, along with much of Western Europe, by the ancient Southern -Sea. As it lay submerged, this sea-washed - -<span class="pagenum">[28]</span> - -land accumulated on its surface, over a period of ten -million years, layers of white or whitish mud about nine -hundred feet thick and composed principally of the microscopic -skeletons of plankton and tiny shells. Eventually the -mud converted itself into rock. Then, for another forty million -years, at just the point where the neck of the Dover -Strait now is, very gentle earth movements raised the level of -this rock to form a bar-shaped island some forty miles long. -By Eocene times this Wealden Island, stretching westward -across the Calais-Dover area, actually seems to have been the -only bit of solid ground standing out in a seascape of a Western -Europe inundated by the Eocene sea. When most of -France and southern England reappeared above the surface, -in Miocene times, this island welded them together; later, in -the ice age, the Channel isthmus disappeared and emerged -again four times with the rise and fall of the sea caused by -the alternate thawing and refreezing of the northern icecap. -When each sequence of the ice age ended, the land bridge -remained, high and dry as ever, and it was over this isthmus -that paleolithic man shambled across from the Continent, in -the trail of rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, giant boars, and -other great beasts whose fossilized bones have been found in -the Wealden area.</p> - -<p>Encroaching seas made a channel through the isthmus and -cut the Bronze Age descendants of this breed of men off from -the Continent about six thousand years ago. Then fierce tidal -currents coursing between the North Sea and the Atlantic -widened the breach still further until, as recently as four -thousand years ago (or only about a couple of thousand -years before Caesar's legions invaded Britain by boat), the -sea wore away the rock of the isthmus to approximately the -present width of the Strait, leaving exposed high at each side -the eroded rock walls, formerly the whitish mudbank of -Cretaceous times—now the white chalk cliffs of the Dover - -<span class="pagenum">[29]</span> - -and Calais areas. Providentially for the later purposes of -Channel tunnelers, however, the seas that divided England -from the Continent also left behind them a thin remnant of -the old land connection in the form of certain chalk layers -that still stretched in gentle folds across the bottom of the -Strait, and it was through this area of remaining chalk that -the Victorian engineers planned to drive their tunnel headings. -Even more providentially, they had the opportunity of -extending their headings under the Channel through a substratum -of chalk almost ideal for tunneling purposes, known -as the Lower Chalk. Unlike the two layers of cretaceous rock -that lie above it—the white Upper Chalk and the whitish -Middle Chalk, both of which are flint-laden, heavily fissured, -and water-bearing, and consequently almost impossible to -tunnel in for any distance—the Lower Chalk (it is grayish -in color) is virtually flint-free and nearly impermeable to -water, especially in the lower parts of the stratum, where it -is mixed with clay; at the same time it is stable, generally -free of fissures, and easy to work. From the coastline between -Folkestone and South Foreland, north-east of Dover, -where its upper level is visible in the cliffs, the Lower Chalk -dips gently down into the Strait in a north-easterly direction -and disappears under an outcropping Middle Chalk, and -emerges again on the French side between Calais and Cap -Blanc-Nez. Given this knowledge and their knowledge of the -state of Lower Chalk beds on land areas, the Victorian engineers -were confident that the ribbon of Lower Chalk extending -under the Strait would turn out to be a continuous one. -To put this view to a further test, the French Channel Tunnel -Company, in 1875, commissioned a team of eminent geologists -and hydrographers to make a more detailed survey of -the area than had yet been attempted. In 1875 and 1876 the -surveyors made 7,700 soundings and took 3,267 geological -samples from the bed of the Strait and concluded from their -studies that, except for a couple of localities near each shoreline, -which a tunnel could avoid, the Lower Chalk indeed -showed every sign of stretching without interruption or fault -from shore to shore. However, when these - -<span class="pagenum">[30]</span> - -studies were completed, -Lord Grosvenor's Channel Tunnel Company did not -find itself in a position to do much about them. The company -was having trouble raising money, and its temporary power -to acquire land at St. Margaret's Bay for experimental -workings had lapsed without the promoters ever having used -it. William Low, who had left the company in 1873 after -disagreements with Hawkshaw on technical matters—Low -had come to believe, for one thing, that the terrain around St. -Margaret's Bay was unsuitable as a starting place for a -channel tunnel—had become the chief engineering consultant -of a rival Channel-tunnel outfit that called itself the Anglo-French -Submarine Railway Company. But the Anglo-French -Submarine Railway Company wasn't getting anywhere, -either. It remained for a third English company, headed by -a railway magnate named Sir Edward Watkin, to push the -Channel-tunnel scheme into its next phase, which turned out -to be the most tumultuous one in all its history.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_1.jpg" width="600" height="552" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption"><span class="smcap">M.P.'s Bride.</span> -"<i>Oh! William dear—if you are—a Liberal—<br /> -do bring in a Bill—next Session—for that Underground Tunnel!!</i>" -</div> - -<p class="center">This cartoon depicting the horrors of the Channel crossing originally<br /> -appeared in <cite>Punch</cite> in 1869. In 1961, 92 years later, <cite>Punch</cite> found it<br /> -as timely as ever.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> - -<p class="large center">THE GREAT<br /> -TUNNEL SCHEMERS -</p> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_2a.jpg" width="450" height="596" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption">Aimé Thomé de Gamond</div> -</div> - -<hr class="r15" /> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_2b.jpg" width="450" height="591" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption">Sir Edward Watkin</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> - -<div class="large center">THE GREAT ANTI-TUNNELER</div> -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_3a.jpg" width="450" height="547" alt="" /> -</div> -<div class="caption"> -Lt.-Gen. Sir Garnet Wolseley, 1882 -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="r15" /> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_3b.png" width="600" height="437" alt="" /> -</div> -<div class="caption"> -Sir Garnet Wolseley's fears of a French invasion through the tunnel as<br /> -seen in the United States in 1882 by <i>Puck</i>. -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_4_merged.jpg" width="600" height="331" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption"> -Hector Horeau's tunnel scheme of 1851 involved laying<br /> -down a prefabricated submerged tube on the Channel bottom.<br /> -The pavilions are ventilating stations. -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_5b.jpg" width="600" height="453" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption"> -Thomé de Gamond's plan in 1856 for a Channel tunnel by way of the<br /> -Varne, which would be built up into an international harbor. -</div> -</div> - -<div class="topspace2"></div> - -<hr class="r15" /> - -<div class="break-before"> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_6.jpg" width="600" height="312" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption"> -The Channel tunnel workings at Shakespeare Cliff in 1882.<br /> -The entrance is by the smokestack near the twin portals,<br /> -which are unconnected with the tunnel workings. -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_7a.jpg" width="600" height="276" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption"> -Diagram of the tunnel workings at Shakespeare Cliff in 1882.<br /> -The Admiralty Pier at Dover is in the distance. -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> - -<div class="large center"> -TUNNEL PARTIES IN THE 1880s -</div> - -<p class="center">Everybody who was anybody -went down into the tunnel to inspect the new -undersea road to France.</p> -</div> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_6a.jpg" width="600" height="514" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption"> -1. Guests preparing for the descent.<br /> -2. Being lowered 163 feet below the surface to the gallery.<br /> -3. Champagne party in the tunnel. -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_7-1.jpg" width="600" height="497" alt="" /> -</div> - -<hr class="r15" /> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_7-2.jpg" width="600" height="443" alt="" /> -</div> -<div class="caption"> -4. Inspecting the Beaumont tunneling machine as it bores toward France.<br /> -5. Tunnel oratory at champagne lunch at Dover. -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="break-before"> -<div class="topspace2"></div> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_8.jpg" width="600" height="483" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption"> -An early Napoleonic vision of the invasion of England<br /> -by air, sea, and a Channel tunnel. -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="break-before"> -<div class="topspace2"></div> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_11.jpg" width="600" height="435" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption">Sir Edward Watkin, at the sluice-gates, vanquishes the French invaders<br /> -marching on England through the tunnel. A London newspaper cartoon at the time<br /> -of the great tunnel controversy. -</div> -</div> - -<div class="topspace2"></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> - -<div class="large center">THREE SOLUTIONS TO THE INVASION PROBLEM</div> -<p class="center">How to have a tunnel and still keep England safe from invasion<br /> -is a problem that has attracted the attention of artists since the eighties.</p> -</div> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_13.jpg" width="600" height="390" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption"> -The <cite>Illustrated London News</cite>, 1882, -shows how, at the first sign of invasion, the tunnel<br /> -could be bombarded from the Admiralty Pier at -Dover, from the Dover fortifications,<br /> -and from positions offshore.</div> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_12.jpg" width="600" height="348" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption">Viaduct for the French tunnel entrance -proposed in 1906. At signs of French intentions to<br /> -invade, the British fleet would sail up and blow this -viaduct to smithereens, thus blocking<br /> -the tunnel from the French end.</div> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_13a.png" width="500" height="449" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption">David Langdon in <cite>Paris Match</cite>, 1960, suggests -another way of handling the invasion problem. -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="break-before"> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_15.jpg" width="600" height="449" alt="" /> -</div> -<div class="caption">PROPOSED METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING A -SUBMERGED TUBE<br />UNDER THE CHANNEL</div> - -<div class="caption">The illustration shows the proposed laying of a "cut and cover"<br /> -prefabricated tunnel on the Channel bottom with the aid of a<br /> -DeLong self-elevating construction platform. -</div> -</div> - -<div class="topspace2"></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="break-before"> - -<div class="image-center"> - <img src="images/i_080fp_16.jpg" width="500" height="685" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="caption">Artist's impression of the boring of the double Channel tunnel,<br />with -its extra service tunnel and cross-passages, as proposed by the Channel<br /> -Tunnel Study Group in 1960. -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum">[31]</span></p> - -<h2> -<img src="images/i_chapter_3_header.png" alt="Three" /> -<br />Three -</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="xxxlarge">S</span><span class="smcap">IR EDWARD WATKIN</span> -was a vociferously successful promoter from the Midlands. The son of -a Manchester cotton merchant, Watkin had passed up a chance at the -family business in favor of railways in the early days of the age of -steam, and it is a measure of his generally acknowledged shrewdness at -railway promotion that in his mid-twenties, having become secretary of -the Trent Valley Railway, he negotiated its sale to the London North -Western Railway at a profit of £438,000. Now in his early sixties, -Watkin was chairman of three British railway companies, the Manchester, -Sheffield Lincolnshire Railway, the Metropolitan (London) Railway, and -the South-Eastern Railway—the last-named being a company whose -line ran from London to Dover via Folkestone—and one of his big -current schemes was the formation of a through route under a single -management—his own, naturally—from Manchester and the north -to Dover. It was while he was busily promoting this scheme that Watkin -caught the Channel-tunnel fever. He realized that part of the land the -South-Eastern Railway owned along its line between Folkestone and Dover -lay happily accessible to the ribbon of Lower Chalk that - -<span class="pagenum">[32]</span> - -dipped into the sea in the direction of Dover and stretched under -the bed of the Strait, and it wasn't long before he was conjuring up -visions of a great system in which his projected Manchester-Dover line, -instead of stopping at the Channel shoreline, would carry on under the -Strait to the Continent.</p> - -<p>One of Sir Edward Watkin's first steps toward determining the -technical feasibility of constructing a tunnel was to call in, sometime -in the mid-seventies, William Low, whose own tunnel company had quite -fallen apart, for engineering consultation. Watkin decided to aim -for a twin tunnel based on Low's idea, which would have its starting -point in the area west of Dover and east of Folkestone, and he put -his own engineers to work on the job. In 1880, the engineers sank a -seventy-four-foot shaft by the South-Eastern Railway line at Abbots -Cliff, about midway between Folkestone and Dover, and began driving a -horizontal pilot gallery seven feet in diameter along the Lower Chalk -bed in the direction of the sea off Dover. By the early part of the -following year, the experimental heading extended about half a mile -underground. His engineers having satisfied themselves that the Lower -Chalk was lending itself as well as expected to being tunneled, Sir -Edward went ahead and formed the Submarine Continental Railway Company, -capitalized at £250,000 and closely controlled by the South-Eastern -Railway Company, to take over the existing tunnel workings and to -continue them on a larger scale, with the aim of constructing a Channel -tunnel connecting with the South-Eastern's coastal rail line. At the -same time, he reached an understanding with the French Channel Tunnel -Company on co-ordination of English and French operations; he also -engineered through Parliament—he was an M.P. himself, and that -helped things a bit—a bill giving the South-Eastern power to -carry out the - -<span class="pagenum">[33]</span> - -compulsory purchase of certain coastal land in the general -direction taken by the existing heading.</p> - -<p>Then Sir Edward's engineers sank a second shaft, farther to the -east but in alignment with the first heading, 160 feet below a level -stretch of ground by the South-Eastern Railway line at Shakespeare -Cliff, just west of Dover, 120 feet below high water, and began boring -a new seven-foot pilot tunnel that dipped down with the Lower Chalk -bed leading into the Channel. This second boring, like the first, was -carried out with the use of a tunneling machine especially designed -for the purpose by Colonel Frederick Beaumont, an engineer who had had -a hand in the construction of the Dover fortifications. The Beaumont -tunneling machine, a prototype of some of the most powerful tunneling -machines in use nowadays, was run by compressed air piped in from the -outside, and the discharge of this air from the machine as it worked -also served as a way of keeping the gallery ventilated. The cutting of -the rock was done by a total of fourteen steel planetary cutters set in -two revolving arms at the head of the machine; with each turn of the -borer a thin paring of chalk 5/16 of an inch thick was shorn away from -the working face, the spoil being passed by conveyor belt to the back -of the machine and dumped into carts or skips that were pushed by hand -along the length of the gallery on narrow-gauge rails. The machine made -one and a half to two revolutions a minute, and Sir Edward estimated -for his stockholders that with simultaneous tunneling with the use of -similar equipment from the French shore—the French Tunnel Company -had already sunk a 280-foot shaft of its own at Sangatte and was -preparing to drive a gallery toward England—the Channel bottom -would be pierced from shore to shore by a continuous single pilot -tunnel, twenty-two miles long, in three and a half years. Once this was -done, according to Sir Edward's plans, the seven-foot gallery was to be -enlarged by - -<span class="pagenum">[34]</span> - -special cutting machinery to a fourteen-foot diameter, and a double -tunnel, thickly lined with concrete and connected by cross-passages, -constructed. (Four miles of access tunnel were to be added on the -French, and possibly on the English, side, too.) The completed tunnel -was to be lighted throughout by electric light—a novelty already -being tried out in the pilot tunnel by the well-known electrical -engineer C. W. Siemens—and the trains that ran through it -between France and Britain were to be hauled by locomotives designed -by Colonel Beaumont. Instead of being run by smoke-producing coal, the -locomotives were to be propelled by compressed air carried behind the -engine in tanks, and, like the Beaumont tunneling machine, the engine -was supposed to keep the tunnel ventilated by giving out fresh air as -it went along. (A lot of air was to be released in the tunnel in the -course of a day; a tentative schedule called for one train to traverse -it in one direction or another every five minutes or so for twenty -hours out of the twenty-four.)</p> - -<p>Trains coming through the tunnel from France were to emerge into -the daylight and the ordinary open air of England either from a -four-mile-long access tunnel connected to the South-Eastern's railway -line at Abbots Cliff or—this was a favored alternative plan of -Sir Edward's—at Shakespeare Cliff via a station to be constructed -in a great square excavated a hundred and sixty feet deep in the -ground, which would be covered over with glass, lighted by electric -light, and equipped "with large waiting rooms and refreshment rooms." -From the abyss of this submerged station, trains arriving from the -Continent were to be raised, an entire train at a time, to the level of -the existing South-Eastern line by a giant hydraulic lift. (Actually, -constructing an elevator capable of raising such an enormous load would -not seem as unlikely a feat in the eighties as it might to many people -now; Victorian engineers were expert in the use of hydraulic - -<span class="pagenum">[35]</span> - -power for ship locks and all sorts of other devices, and, in fact, -hydraulic power was so commonly used that the London of half a century -ago had perhaps eight hundred miles of hydraulic piping laid below the -streets to work industrial presses, motors, and most of the cranes on -the Thames docks.)</p> - -<p>As the experimental work progressed, Sir Edward Watkin saw to -it that all the splendid details about the Channel-tunnel scheme -were constantly brought to the attention of the South-Eastern's -shareholders, the press, and the public. Sir Edward, besides -being a nineteenth-century railway king, was also something of a -twentieth-century public-relations operator. He was a firm believer in -the beneficial effects of giving big dinners, a pioneer in the art of -organizing big junkets, and an adept at getting plenty of newspaper -space. An energetic lobbyist in Parliament for all sorts of causes, -not excluding his own commercial projects, he was known as a habitual -conferrer of friendly little gestures upon important people in and out -of government, and his kindness is said to have gone so far at one -time that he provided Mr. Gladstone with the convenience of a private -railway branch line that went right to the statesman's country home.</p> - -<p>The driving of the Channel-tunnel pilot gallery at Shakespeare Cliff -offered Sir Edward a handy opportunity for exercising his gifts in -the field of public relations, and he took full advantage of it. Week -after week, as the boring of the tunnel progressed, he invited large -groups of influential people, as many as eighty at a time, including -politicians and statesmen, editors, reporters, and artists, members -of great families, well-known financiers and businessmen from Britain -and abroad, and members of the clergy and the military establishment -to be his guests on a trip by special train from London to Dover at -Shakespeare Cliff. There, at the Submarine Continental Railway Company -workings, the visitors - -<span class="pagenum">[36]</span> - -were taken down into the tunnel to inspect the creation of the -new experimental highway to the Continent. A typical enough -descriptive paragraph in the press concerning one of these -visits (on this occasion a group of prominent Frenchmen -were the guests of Sir Edward) is contained in a contemporary -report in the <cite>Times</cite>:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>The visitors were lowered six at a time in an iron "skip" down the -shaft into the tunnel. At the bottom of this shaft, 163 feet below -the surface of the ground, the mouth of the tunnel was reached, and -the visitors took their seats on small tramcars which were drawn by -workmen. So evenly has the boring machine done its work that one seemed -to be looking along a great tube with a slightly downward set, and as -the glowing electric lamps, placed alternately on either side of the -way, showed fainter and fainter in the far distance, the tunnel, for -anything one could tell from appearances, might have had its outlet in -France.</p> - -</blockquote> - -<p>Sir Edward Watkin, in a speech he made at a Submarine Continental -Railway Company stockholders' meeting shortly after such a visit (the -main parts of the speech were duly paraphrased in the press), found the -effect of the electric light (operated on something called the Swan -system) in the tunnel to be just as striking as the <cite>Times</cite> -reporter had—only brighter.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>He thought the visit might be regarded as a remarkable one. Their -colleague, Dr. Siemens, lighted up the tunnel with the Swan light, and -it was certainly a beautiful sight to see a cavern, as it were, under -the bottom of the sea made in places as brilliant as daylight.</p> - -</blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[37]</span></p> - -<p>While on their way by tramcar to view the working of Colonel -Beaumont's boring machine at the far end of the tunnel, visitors -stopped after a certain distance to enjoy another experience—a -champagne party held in a chamber cut in the side of the tunnel. -A contemporary artist's sketch in the <cite>Illustrated London -News</cite> records the sight of a group of visitors clustered around -a bottle-laden table at one of these way side halts. Mustachioed and -bearded, and wearing Sherlock Holmes deerstalker caps and dust jackets, -they are shown, in tableaued dignity, standing about within a solidly -timbered cavelike area with champagne glasses in their hands; and for -all the Victorian pipe-trouser formality of their posture there is no -doubt that the subjects are having a good time. After such a refreshing -pause, the visitors would be helped on the tramcars again and escorted -on to see the boring machine cutting through the Lower Chalk and to -admire the generally dry appearance of the tunnel, and after that they -would be taken back to the surface and given a splendid lunch either in -a marquee set up near the entrance to the shaft or at the Lord Warden -Hotel, in Dover, where more champagne would be served, along with other -wines and brandies, more toasts to the Queen's health proposed, and -speeches made on the present and future marvels of the tunnel, the -forwardness of its backers, and the new era in international relations -that the whole project promised. These lunches were also convenient -occasions for the speakers to pooh-pooh the claims of the rival tunnel -scheme of Lord Richard Grosvenor's Channel Tunnel Company, which was -still being put forward, although entirely on paper, and to make -announcements of miscellaneous items of news about progress in the -Lower Chalk.</p> - -<p>Thus, at one of these lunches at the Lord Warden Hotel held in the -third week of February, 1882, Mr. Myles Fenton, the general manager of -the South-Eastern Railway, took occasion - -<span class="pagenum">[38]</span> - -to announce to a large party of visitors from London that boring -of the gallery had now reached a distance of eleven hundred yards, -or nearly two-thirds of a mile, in the direction of the end of -the great Admiralty Pier at Dover. According to an account in the -<cite>Times</cite>, Mr. Fenton read to the interested gathering -a telegram he had received from Sir Edward, who was unable to be -present, but who by wire "expressed the hope that by Easter Week a -locomotive compressed air engine would be running in the tunnel, of -which it was expected the first mile would by that time have been made. -(Cheers.)"</p> - -<p>Sometimes these lunches were held down in the tunnel itself, and -general conditions down there were such that even ladies attended them, -on special occasions, as a contemporary magazine account of a visit -paid to the gallery by a number of engineers with their families makes -clear.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>The visitors were conducted twenty at a time to the end on a sort of -trolley or benches on wheels drawn by a couple of men. In the centre -of the tunnel a kind of saloon, decorated with flowers and evergreens, -was arranged, and, on a large table, glasses and biscuits, etc., were -spread for the inevitable luncheon. There was no infiltration of water -in any part. In the places where several small fissures and slight -oozings had appeared during the boring operations, a shield in sheet -iron had been applied against the wall by the engineer, following all -the circumference of the gallery and making it completely watertight. -There they were as in a drawing-room, and the ladies having descended -in all the glories of silks and lace and feathers were astonished to -find themselves as - -<span class="pagenum">[39]</span> - -immaculate on their return as at the beginning of their trip. The -atmosphere in the tunnel was not less pure, but even fresher than -outside, thanks to the compressed air machine which, having acted on -the excavator at the beginning of the cutting, released its cooled air -in the centre of the tunnel.</p> - -</blockquote> - -<p>With the widespread talk of champagne under the sea, potted -plants flourishing under the electric lights, and bracing breezes -blowing within the Lower Chalk, going down from London to attend -one of Sir Edward's tunnel parties seems to have become one of the -fashionable things to do in English society in the early part of 1882. -By the beginning of spring, visitors taken down into the tunnel and -entertained by Sir Edward included such eminent figures as the Lord -Mayor of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Prince and -Princess of Wales. To judge by this stage of affairs, the boring of the -tunnel was going on under the most agreeable of auspices.</p> - -<p>Behind all the sociability and the stream of publicity engendered -in the press by the visits of well-known people to the tunnel, the -situation was not quite so promising. While the physical boring was -going ahead smoothly enough in the Lower Chalk, the promotion of the -tunnel as a full-scale project was encountering growing resistance -from within the upper crust of The Establishment. The fact seems to be -that the British Government had never felt altogether easy about the -idea of the Channel tunnel from the start, and although it had never -formally expressed any misgivings about the scheme as a whole, it had -always been careful not to associate itself with the enterprise, and -its attitude toward its progress generally had been one of reluctant -acquiescence. Whatever disquiet people in government felt about the -tunnel project - -<span class="pagenum">[40]</span> - -appears to have been expressed in three general ways—first, in -the introduction of caveats of a military nature; second, in proposals -to delay the progress of the scheme on other than military grounds; -and third, in a general, nameless suspicion of the whole idea. Such -reservations had been evident even in 1875, when the Channel Tunnel -Company applied to Parliament for powers to carry out experimental work -at St. Margaret's Bay.</p> - -<p>To exemplify the first kind of reservation put forward, the Board -of Trade, the governmental department under whose surveillance such -commercial schemes came, made a point of insisting that for defense -purposes the Government must retain absolute power to "erect and -maintain such [military] works at the English mouth of the Tunnel as -they may deem expedient," and in case of actual or threatened war to -close the tunnel down. As for the tendency of governmental people -to find other grounds for objection in the project, this could be -exemplified by the delaying action of the Secretary to the Treasury, -when in 1875 it looked as though Parliament were about to take action -on the Channel-tunnel bill. In a memorandum to the Foreign Office, the -Secretary sought to have the tunnel bill laid aside at the last moment -of its consideration before Parliament so that the answers to all -sorts of important jurisdictional questions could be sought—for -example, "If a crime were committed in the Tunnel, by what authority -would it be cognizable?"<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a -href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> And as for the third, -unnamed kind of objection, Queen Victoria, who, with her late husband -(Prince Albert died in 1861), had once been so - -<span class="pagenum">[41]</span> - -enthusiastic about the idea of a Channel tunnel, simply changed her -mind about the entire business; in February of 1875, the Queen wrote -Disraeli, without elaborating, that "she hopes that the Government will -do nothing to encourage the proposed tunnel under the Channel which she -thinks very objectionable."</p> - -<p>Ever since 1875, all these official doubts and misgivings had -continued to lurk in the background of the Government's dealings with -the Channel-tunnel promoters—especially military misgivings about -the scheme. Apart from putting down the usual bloody insurrections -among native populations while she went about the business of -maintaining her colonial territories, Britain was at peace with the -world. As far as her military relations with the Continent stood, the -threats of Napoleon I to invade the island had not been forgotten, and -even in the reign of Napoleon III there had been occasional alarms -about an invasion, but the country's physical separation from the -Continent tended to make the military tensions existing over there -seem rather comfortingly remote. Britain's home defenses were left -on a pretty easygoing basis, the country's reliance on resistance to -armed attack being placed, in traditional fashion, in the power of -the Royal Navy to control her seas—meaning, for all practical -purposes, its ability to control the Channel. With the Navy and the -Channel to protect her shores, Britain in the seventies and eighties -got along at home with a professional army of only sixty thousand men, -as against a standing army in France of perhaps three-quarters of a -million. Seasickness or no seasickness, the Channel was considered to -be a convenient manpower and tax-money saver. The advantages of the -Channel to Victorian England were perhaps most eloquently expressed by -Mr. Gladstone in the course of an article of his in the <cite>Edinburgh -Review</cite> in 1870 on England's relationship to the military and -political turmoil existing on the Continent. - -<span class="pagenum">[42]</span> - -"Happy England!" he wrote in a brief panegyric on the Channel. "Happy -... that the wise dispensation of Providence has cut her off, by -that streak of silver sea, which passengers so often and so justly -execrate ... partly from the dangers, absolutely from the temptations, -which attend upon the local neighborhood of the Continental -nations.... Maritime supremacy has become the proud—perhaps the -indefectible—inheritance of England." And Mr. Gladstone went on, -after dwelling upon one of his favorite themes, the evils of standing -armies and the miserable burden of conscription, to suggest that -Englishmen didn't realize just how grateful they ought to be for the -Channel:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Where the Almighty grants exceptional and peculiar bounties, He -sometimes permits by way of counterpoise an insensibility to their -value. Were there but a slight upward heaving of the crust of the -earth between France and Great Britain, and were dry land thus to be -substituted for a few leagues of sea, then indeed we should begin to -know what we had lost.</p> - -</blockquote> - -<p>These remarks of Mr. Gladstone's on the Channel appear to have -made a powerful impression on opinion in upper-class England; for -many years after their publication his partly Shakespearean phrase, -"the streak of silver sea"—or a variation of it, "the silver -streak"—remained as a standard term in the vocabulary of -Victorian patriotism. Not surprisingly, considering his views in 1870, -the attitude of Mr. Gladstone in 1881 and 1882, during his term as -Prime Minister, toward the plan of Sir Edward Watkin to undermine those -Straits the statesman had so extolled was an equivocal one.</p> - -<p>Indeed, quite a number of people in and around Whitehall had -considerably stronger reservations about the Channel-tunnel project -than Mr. Gladstone did. These misgivings - -<span class="pagenum">[43]</span> - -had to do with fears that a completed tunnel under the Channel might -form a breach in England's traditional defense system, and in June -of 1881 they first came to public notice in the form of an editorial -in the <cite>Times</cite>. Discussing the Channel-tunnel project, -the <cite>Times</cite>, while conceding that "As an improvement in -locomotion, and as a relief to the tender stomachs of passengers who -dread seasickness, the design is excellent," went on to observe that -"from a national [and military] point of view it must not the less be -received with caution." And the paper asked, "Shall we be as well off -and as safe with it as we now are without it? Will it be possible for -us so to guard the English end of the passage that it can never fall -into any other hands than our own?" The <cite>Times</cite> frankly -doubted it, and questioned whether, if the tunnel were built, "a -force of some thousands of men secretly concentrated in a [French] -Channel port and suddenly landed on the coast of Kent" might not -be able by surprise to seize the English end of the tunnel and use -it as a bridgehead for a general invasion of England. At the very -least, the paper warned, the construction of the tunnel meant that "a -design for the invasion of England and a general plan of the campaign -will be subjects on which every cadet in a German military school -will be invited to display his powers," and it suggested that in the -circumstances the Channel had best be left untunneled. "Nature is on -our side at present," the <cite>Times</cite> concluded gravely, "and -she will continue so if we will only suffer her. The silver streak is -our safety." The author of a letter to the <cite>Times</cite> printed -in the same issue declared that the tunnel, if constructed, could be -seized by the French from within as easily as from without, and that -"in three hours a cavalry force might be sent through to seize the -approaches at the English end."</p> - -<p>To all this Sir Edward Watkin replied easily that the tunnel, when -it was finished, could at any time be rendered unusable - -<span class="pagenum">[44]</span> - -from the British end by "a pound of dynamite or a keg of gunpowder." -However, the negative attitude of a journal as influential as the -<cite>Times</cite> was a setback for the project. As a result, the -Government increased its caution about the tunnel. When, at the end of -1881, Sir Edward drew up a private bill for presentation during the -coming year to Parliament that would formally grant the South-Eastern -full authority to buy further coastal lands in the Shakespeare Cliff -area and to complete the construction of and to maintain a Channel -tunnel (Lord Richard Grosvenor and the proprietors of the London, -Chatham & Dover Railway came up with a similar bill on behalf of -the Channel Tunnel Company), the Board of Trade held departmental -hearings on the rival schemes, and at these hearings further attention -was turned to the question of the military security of the tunnel in -the event of its being attacked. At these proceedings, Sir Edward, who -appeared for the purpose of testifying to the civilizing magnificence -of his project, was put somewhat on the defensive by questions about -the desirability of the tunnel from a military point of view. He -found himself in the disconcerting position of being obliged to show -not so much the practicability of building a Channel tunnel as the -practicability of disabling or destroying it. However, making the most -of the situation, he declared that fortifying the English end of the -tunnel, and knocking it out of commission in case of hostile action -by another power, was a simple enough matter to be accomplished in -any number of ways—by flooding it, by filling it with steam, by -bringing it under the gunfire of the Dover fortifications, by exploding -electrically operated mines laid in it, or choking it with shingle -dumped in from the outside. (There was even mention, at the hearings, -of a proposal to pour "boiling petroleum" down upon invaders.) Getting -into the spirit of the thing in spite of himself, Sir Edward told the -examining committee confidently, - -<span class="pagenum">[45]</span> - -"I will give you the choice of blowing up, drowning, scalding, closing -up, suffocating and other means of destroying our enemies.... You -may touch a button at the Horse Guards and blow the whole thing to -pieces."</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding Sir Edward's categorical assurances, the wisdom -of constructing the tunnel came under vigorous attack at the -hearings from a formidably high official military source—from -Lieutenant-General Sir Garnet Wolseley, the Adjutant General of the -British Army. A veteran of the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny who -was considered to be an expert on the art of surprise attack—his -routing of such foes as King Koffee in the first Ashanti War of -1873-74, as well as the great promptitude with which he was said to -have "restored the situation" in the Zulu War, made him a well-known -figure to the British public—Sir Garnet Wolseley had a dual -reputation as an imperialist general and a soldier with advanced ideas -on reform of the supply system of the British Army. In fact, his -enthusiasm for efficiency was such that the phrase "All Sir Garnet" -was commonly used in the Army as a way of saying "all correct." The -actor George Grossmith made himself up as Wolseley to sing the part of -"a modern Major-General" in performances in the eighties of Gilbert -and Sullivan's <cite>The Pirates of Penzance</cite>. Sir Garnet later -became Lord Wolseley and Commander-in-Chief of the British Army. Sir -Garnet Wolseley's opinions of the tunnel project were very strong ones. -In a long memorandum he submitted to the Board of Trade committee -examining the tunnel project, he described the Channel as "a great -wet ditch" for the protection of England, the like of which, he said, -no Continental power, if it possessed one instead of a land frontier, -would "cast recklessly away, by allowing it to be tunnelled under." And -he denounced the construction of a Channel tunnel on the ground that it -would - -<span class="pagenum">[46]</span> - -be certain to create what he termed "a constant inducement to the -unscrupulous foreigner to make war upon us." In agitated language, -General Wolseley invoked the opinion of the late Duke of Wellington -that England could be invaded successfully, and he reiterated the -fear previously expressed by the <cite>Times</cite> that the English -end of the tunnel might be seized from the outside—before any -of its defenders had a chance of setting in motion the mechanisms for -blocking it up—by a hostile force landing nearby on British soil, -whereupon it could readily be converted into a bridgehead for a general -invasion of the country. He also declared that "the works at our end -of the tunnel may be surprised by men sent through the tunnel itself, -without landing a man upon our shores." General Wolseley went on to -show just how the deed could be done:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>A couple of thousand armed men might easily come through the -tunnel in a train at night, avoiding all suspicion by being dressed -as ordinary passengers, and the first thing we should know of it -would be by finding the fort at our end of the tunnel, together with -its telegraph office, and all the electrical arrangements, wires, -batteries, etc., intended for the destruction of the tunnel, in the -hands of an enemy. We know that ... trains could be safely sent through -the tunnel every five minutes, and do the entire distance from the -station at Calais to that at Dover in less than half an hour. Twenty -thousand infantry could thus be easily despatched in 20 trains and -allowing ... 12 minutes interval between each train, that force could -be poured into Dover in four hours.... The invasion of England could -not be attempted by - -<span class="pagenum">[47]</span> - -5,000 men, but half that number, ably led by a daring, dashing young -commander might, I feel, some dark night, easily make themselves -masters of the works at our end of the tunnel, and then England would -be at the mercy of the invader.</p></blockquote> - -<p>General Wolseley conceded that an attack from within the tunnel -itself would be difficult if even a hundred riflemen at the English -end had previously been alerted to the presence of the attackers, but -he doubted that the vigilance of the defenders could always maintain -itself at the necessary pitch. And he put it to the committee: "Since -the day when David secured an entrance by surprise or treachery into -Jerusalem through a tunnel under its walls, how often have places -similarly fallen? and, I may add, will again similarly fall?" General -Wolseley also found highly questionable the efficacy of the various -measures proposed for the protection of the tunnel. He declared that -"a hundred accidents" could easily render such measures useless. Thus, -for example, he found fault with proposals to lay electrically operated -mines inside the tunnel ("A galvanic battery is easily put out of -order; something may be wrong with it just when it is required ... the -gunpowder may be damp"); proposals to admit the sea into the tunnel by -explosion ("an uncertain means of defense"); and proposals to flood -it by sluice-gates at the English end ("These water conduits [might] -become choked or unserviceable when required" and the "drains rendered -useless by treachery"). Then, after pointing out all the frailties of -the contemplated defenses, General Wolseley went on to assert that -the construction of the tunnel would necessitate, at very least, the -conversion of Dover at enormous expense into a first-class fortress and -that it could very well make necessary the introduction into England on -a permanent - -<span class="pagenum">[48]</span> - -basis of compulsory military service to meet the increased threat to -Britain's national security.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Surely [Sir Garnet concluded] John Bull will not endanger his -birth-right, his property, in fact all that man can hold most dear ... -simply in order that men and women may cross to and fro between England -and France without running the risk of seasickness.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Sir Garnet reinforced the arguments against the tunnel in personal -testimony before the committee. In this testimony he emphasized, among -other things, his conviction that once an enemy got a foothold at -Dover, England would find herself utterly unable "short of the direct -interposition of God Almighty"—an eventuality that Sir Garnet did -not appear to count on very heavily—to raise an army capable of -resisting the invaders. And the inevitable result of such a default, -Sir Garnet told the committee, would be that England "would then cease -to exist as a nation."</p> - -<p>Sir Garnet's fears for Britain were not shared in a memorandum -submitted to the committee by another high Army officer, -Lieutenant-General Sir John Adye, the Surveyor-General of the Ordnance. -Sir John gave his opinion that "a General in France, having the -intention of invading England, would not, in my opinion, count on the -tunnel as adding to his resources." He maintained that the argument -that the English end of the tunnel might be taken from within could be -safely dismissed, as invading troops could be destroyed as they arrived -"by means of a small force, with a gun or two, at the mouth of the -tunnel." As for the possibility of a hostile force landing on British -soil to seize the mouth of the tunnel, he questioned whether "an enemy, -having successfully invaded England, [should] turn aside to capture a -very doubtful line of communication, when the main object of his - -<span class="pagenum">[49]</span> - -efforts was straight before him." General Adye thought that -the invaders "would probably feel a much stronger disposition -to march straight on London and finish the campaign."</p> - -<p>However, the frontal attack on the project by General -Wolseley was not a factor to be discounted by any means. -Rallying to it in typical fashion, Sir Edward Watkin attempted -to stifle the spread of patriotic fears about the tunnel -by giving more large lunches at the Lord Warden Hotel -at Dover, and he tried to keep all prospects bright by inviting -more and more prominent people down into the tunnel -at Shakespeare Cliff to marvel at the workings and to refresh -themselves with champagne under the electric lights. -By mid-February, his guests in the tunnel included no less -than sixty Members of Parliament whose support he hoped -to obtain for his pending Tunnel Bill, and on one occasion -he even succeeded in having the Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone -himself, come down into the tunnel and be shown -around. Sir Edward assured his stockholders that what he -called "alarmist views" concerning the construction of the -tunnel were without any real foundation. Addressing an -extraordinary general meeting of the Submarine Continental -Railway Company, Sir Edward quoted from an alleged reaction -of Count von Moltke on the matter: "The invasion of -England through the proposed tunnel I consider impossible. -You might as well talk of invading her through that door"—pointing -to the entrance to his library. Sir Edward brushed -the arguments of military men aside as a collection of "hobgoblin -arguments" by "men who would prefer to see England -remain an island for ever, forgetting that steam had abolished -islands, just as telegraphy had abolished isolated -thought." He insisted that the tunnel promoters were engaged -in a project at once idealistic and practical, and -bravely declared their motto to be identical to that of the -South-Eastern Railway Company—"Onwards."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[50]</span></p> - -<p>By way of countering Sir Garnet Wolseley's invocation of -the opinion of the Duke of Wellington on the dangers of invasion, -the promoters put it about that the Duke of Wellington -in his day had strongly opposed the construction of a -railway between Portsmouth and London on the ground that -it would dangerously facilitate the movement of a French -army upon London. They asserted that one unnamed but -very high English military figure had even expressed alarm, -at the time of the Universal Exhibition of 1851, that the -English Cabinet did not insist on the Queen's retiring to -Osborne, her country place on the Isle of Wight, because of -the large numbers of foreigners at the Exhibition, including -three thousand men of the French National Guard, who were -allowed to parade the streets of London in uniform, wearing -their side arms. And pro-tunnelers recalled in derisive fashion -Lord Palmerston's denunciation of the Suez Canal project -as "a madcap scheme which would be the ruin of our Indian -Empire, were it possible of construction, and which would -spell disaster to those who had the temerity to assert it." -Colonel Beaumont, as an engineer and military man, too, -wrote an article challenging the validity of General Wolseley's -conclusions about the tunnel. Colonel Beaumont maintained -that Dover might already be regarded as "a first-class -fortress, quite safe from any <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">coup de main</i> from without." -Concerning an attack by bodies of infantry or cavalry -through the tunnel, he declared, "They cannot come by -train; as, irrespective of any suspicions on the part of the -booking clerks, special train arrangements would have to be -made to carry [them]; they cannot march, as they would be -run over by the trains, running, as they would do, at intervals -of ten minutes, or oftener, without cessation, day or -night." Colonel Beaumont also outlined, in his article, a number -of precautionary measures that could be taken to secure -the safety of the English end of the tunnel. They included a - -<span class="pagenum">[51]</span> - -system of pumping coal smoke instead of compressed air -from a ventilating shaft into the tunnel, and also the provision -of a system of iron water mains that would connect the -sea with the ventilating shaft and make it possible for the -officer of the guard, in case of invasion, to flood the tunnel by -turning a stopcock. In accordance with these proposed measures, -Sir Edward, early in 1882, attempted to forestall -further military criticism of the Channel-tunnel scheme by -having such a ventilating shaft sunk at the eastern end of -Shakespeare Cliff, about a mile from the main shaft, and -having a start made on another horizontal gallery bored -from the foot of the new shaft in the direction of the main -pilot tunnel under the sea. The new gallery was four feet -instead of seven feet in diameter—the smaller aperture in -itself being an additional measure of protection, Sir Edward -explained, in that intruders would find it impossible to walk -along the ventilation shaft in an upright position or in any -numbers. A friendly article on the tunnel in the <cite>Illustrated -London News</cite> at the beginning of March noted significantly -that not only the entrance at the English end—either at -Abbots Cliff or at Sir Edward's proposed glassed-in railway -station at Shakespeare Cliff—would be under the fire of the -eighty-ton turret guns installed on the Admiralty Pier, but -that "it is to be observed how completely [the entrance to -the new ventilating shaft] is commanded both from the sea -and from the Pier, and also from the guns of the fortress." -The <cite>Illustrated London News</cite> obligingly showed the principle -of the thing by running a large two-page-wide engraving -depicting, in handsomely apocalyptic style, the hypothetical -destruction of the entire tunnel workings and, presumably, -the invaders inside them, amid great ballooning clouds of -smoke from gun batteries everywhere—from the end of the -Admiralty Pier, from points within the Dover land fortifications, -and from the cannonading broadsides of British naval - -<span class="pagenum">[52]</span> - -men-of-war standing offshore. The fate of invaders from -floodwaters was depicted in a more sensational London publication, -the <cite>Penny Illustrated Paper</cite>, which published an -engraving a foot and a half long and a foot high illustrating -"Sir Edward Watkin's remedy for the invasion scare: Drowning -the French Pharaoh in the Channel Tunnel." The engraving -showed a cutaway section of the tunnel under the -Channel near the English end and, rising upward at the left, -a staired chamber of rock equipped with sluice-gates and set -in the white cliffs. In this chamber, two figures in top hats -and frock coats are standing and gazing down on the tunnel, -which is filled with French infantry led by plumed, helmeted -officers on horseback. One of the figures in the cliff chamber, -evidently meant to represent Sir Edward Watkin, is in the -act of calmly operating a turncock that has loosed, through -the sluices, a dreadful flood cascading down into the tunnel -upon the invaders, who are turning to flee in panic.</p> - -<p>Vivid as these scenes of destruction were, they had little -effect on the anti-tunnel forces. Already, in February, another -attack on the tunnel scheme had appeared in the literary -magazine <cite>The Nineteenth Century</cite>, signed by Lord -Dunsany. The article, repeating the claim that the tunnel -project was a menace to Britain's security, referred to the -capacity of the Dover fortress system to defend itself against -a modern invading fleet as "contemptible." Lord Dunsany -wrote that he had gone down to Dover to examine the famous -fortress and had found that with the exception of the two recently -installed turret guns on the Admiralty Pier, the guns -"generally speaking were of an obsolete pattern—popguns, -in fact." And he asserted that when he had remarked on the -relatively modern appearance of one of the larger guns in a -particularly commanding position of the fortress, "I was told -by an artilleryman that there were orders against firing it, -as it would bring down the brickwork of the rampart."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[53]</span></p> - -<p>Soon after this, an anonymous article in the <cite>Army and -Navy Gazette</cite> declared that "The Island has been invaded -again and again" and it reminded the <cite>Gazette's</cite> readers that -"The present constitution of the country depends on the -last successful invasion by a Dutch Prince with Dutch -troops, and the overthrow of the King, by an army largely -composed of foreigners." The article took Lieutenant-General -Sir John Adye severely to task for having found the -tunnel a good security risk, and it even went so far afield -in its criticism of him as to find fault with the General for -what it called his "deliberate, vehement, and long-continued -resistance to the introduction of the breech-loading system in -our artillery that placed us at the fag-end of all the world, -when we ought to have been first."</p> - -<p>Then, in March, 1882, <cite>The Nineteenth Century</cite> carried an -article against the tunnel by Professor Goldwin Smith, who -wrote that the protection of the Channel, by exempting England -from the necessity of keeping a large standing army, -had preserved the country from military despotism and enabled -her to move steadily in the path of political progress. -The Channel, Professor Smith wrote, in the past had preserved -England from the Armada and from the army of -Napoleon I; in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had -preserved the Reformation; and in the eighteenth century it -had preserved her from the spread of revolutionary fevers -and from subjection to foreign tyranny. Now, he said, it was -the barrier between Britain's industrial people and military -conscription, and he went on, in an echo of Mr. Gladstone's -earlier remarks in the <cite>Edinburgh Review</cite>, to declare of the -Channel that "A convulsion of nature which should dry it up -would be almost as fatal to England as one which should -ruin the dykes would be to Holland."</p> - -<p>Under these circumstances of increasing controversy, the -attitude of the Board of Trade toward the tunnel project - -<span class="pagenum">[54]</span> - -became one of further reserve. In February, the Board informed -the War Office that the military question of the tunnel -had assumed such magnitude that a decision on it should -be taken not on a departmental level but on the higher governmental -policy level, and it suggested that the War Office -start its own investigations on the military aspect of the -matter.</p> - -<p>Commenting on the prevailing French attitude toward -British fears about the tunnel project, the Paris correspondent -of the London <cite>Times</cite> observed mildly that "the political -uneasiness which the scheme has raised on the other side does -not exist here.... No Frenchman, of course, regards it as -jeopardizing national security. Frenchmen see in it a greater -facility for visiting the United Kingdom, and for relieving -the monotony of Swiss tours by a trip to the Scotch highlands."</p> - -<p>In satirical fashion, a paragraph in <cite>Punch</cite> undertook to -summarize the reaction in another European country:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Bogie! The Italian Government are so struck -by the alarm exhibited by Sir Garnet Wolseley -at the prospect of a Channel Tunnel, that they -have closed the Mount Cenis and St. Gotthard -Tunnels, and left travellers to the mountain diligences. -Their reason for doing this is the fact -that Napoleon really crossed the Alps, while he -only threatened to invade England.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>As for reactions in Germany, the British chargé d'affaires -in Dresden reported in a dispatch to the Foreign Office that -he had questioned the Chief of Staff of the 12th (Saxon) -Corps—"an officer of high attainments"—on his attitude -toward the possible invasion of England through the Channel -tunnel, or through sudden seizure of the English end from -the outside.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[55]</span></p> - -<p>He wrote that General von Holleben, the officer in question, -had observed, in connection with the practicability of -landing a Continental force and taking the British end, that -although such an operation was not impossible, "that [it] -would succeed in the face of our military and moral resources, -railways and telegraphs, he should believe when he -saw it happen."</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>General von Holleben then remarked that the -idea of moving an Army-Corps 25 miles beneath -the sea was one which he did not quite -take in. The distance was a heavy day's march; -halts must be made; and the column of troops -would be from eight to ten miles long. He was -unable to realize all this off hand, and he did not -know but what we were talking of a chimoera.</p> - -<p>I observed that no one appeared to have -asked what would happen to the air of the tunnel -if bodies of 20,000 or even 10,000 men were -to move through at once. The General said that -this atmospheric difficulty was new to him, and -it did not sound very soluble.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>But the fears of the War Office were not stilled by such -observations as these. On February 23, the War Office announced -that it was appointing a Channel Tunnel Defense -Committee, headed by Major-General Sir Archibald Alison, -the chief of British Army Intelligence, to collect and -examine in detail scientific evidence on "the practicability -of closing effectually a submarine railway tunnel" in case of -actual or apprehended war.</p> - -<p>The Board of Trade, in the meantime, did its best to hold -Sir Edward Watkin and his project off at arm's length. On -March 6, 1882, the secretary of the Board of Trade, which -had been keeping an eye on newspaper accounts of the progress - -<span class="pagenum">[56]</span> - -of the tunnel, wrote to remind Sir Edward of the vital -fact that all the foreshore of the United Kingdom below -high-water mark at Dover was "<i xml:lang="la">prima facie</i> the property of -the Crown and under the management of the Board of -Trade," and that while the department did not wish to impede -progress it distinctly wished to give notice that the -Government "hold themselves free to use any powers at their -disposal in such a matter as Parliament may decide, or as -the general interest of the country may seem to them to require." -In other words, the Board told the Submarine Continental -Railway Company that it could not drive its tunnel -toward France without trespassing on Crown property extending -all the way from high-water mark to the three-mile -limit of British jurisdiction—the traditionally accepted -limit of the carrying power of cannon.</p> - -<p>The claim of the Crown to the foreshore in this case was, -however, one that Sir Edward Watkin disputed. He claimed -that through an arrangement with a landowner near Shakespeare -Cliff, and by certain purchases of land from the -Archbishop of Canterbury as head of the Church of England, -the tunnel proprietors had come into possession of -ancient manorial rights, originally granted by the Crown itself, -that permitted them to exploit the foreshore at Shakespeare -Cliff as they saw fit, including the right to tunnel -under it. Sir Edward had claimed that he was having made -an extensive legal search of the title in question, which would -take a little while.</p> - -<p>But the notification from the Board of Trade was an ominous -development for Sir Edward and his scheme; and even -more ominous signs were to follow. During March, anti-tunneling -forces in Britain circulated a great petition among -prominent Englishmen against the scheme, for presentation -to Parliament. The petition, recording the conviction of the -signatories that a Channel tunnel "would involve this country - -<span class="pagenum">[57]</span> - -in military dangers and liabilities from which, as an island, -it has hitherto been happily free," was published in the April -issue of <cite>The Nineteenth Century</cite>, and it was signed not only -by military people but by many of the most diversely eminent -literary, scientific, and ecclesiastical men of the day—including -Robert Browning, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Herbert -Spencer, Professor T. H. Huxley, Cardinals Newman and -Manning, and the Archbishop of York—as well as a great -cloud of names from the nobility and the landed gentry. In -an eloquent article accompanying the petition, the editor of -<cite>The Nineteenth Century</cite>, James Knowles, implicitly added -the name of William Shakespeare to the list of anti-tunnel -signatories by invoking the John of Gaunt speech from <cite>Richard -II</cite>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,</div> - <div class="verse">This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,</div> - <div class="verse">This other Eden, demi-Paradise,</div> - <div class="verse">This fortress built by Nature for herself</div> - <div class="verse">Against infection and the hand of war,</div> - <div class="verse">This happy breed of men, this little world,</div> - <div class="verse">This precious stone set in the silver sea,</div> - <div class="verse">Which serves it in the office of a wall</div> - <div class="verse">Or as a moat defensive to a house,</div> - <div class="verse">Against the envy of less happier lands....</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>The editor went on to declare, more prosaically, that "To -hang the safety of England at some most critical instant -upon the correct working of a tap, or of any mechanical contrivance, -is quite beyond the faith of this generation of -Englishmen."</p> - -<p>Almost at the instant that the heavy blow of the petition -in <cite>The Nineteenth Century</cite> fell upon the tunnel promoters, -the Board of Trade sent down a real thunderbolt upon their -heads. On April 1, the Board of Trade wrote Sir Edward - -<span class="pagenum">[58]</span> - -Watkin that, whatever might be the title to the foreshore at -Shakespeare Cliff, there was no doubt as to the title of the -Crown under the bed of the sea below low-water mark and -within the three-mile limit. It informed him that according -to the department's calculations, based on a tracing of the -tunnel route previously obtained from the Submarine Continental -Railway Company, the boring of the tunnel now must -necessarily be close to the point of low-water mark. And, -as a consequence, the Board of Trade instructed the company -that, pending the outcome of the Government's deliberations -on the military security of the tunnel, it must -suspend its boring operations forthwith and give the Government -assurances to that effect.</p> - -<div class="topspace2"></div> - -<div class="footnotes"> -<blockquote> -<p class="footnote"><span class="smcap">Footnotes.</span></p> <div -class="footnote"> <p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a -href="#FNanchor_1"> <span class="label">[1]</span></a> An Anglo-French -Joint Commission formed to set up agreements on the jurisdiction of -the two countries over the Channel tunnel in 1876 actually drew up a -protocol for a channel-tunnel treaty between England and France. The -Commission agreed to the jurisdiction of each government ceasing at a -point to be marked in the center of the tunnel and it recommended that -the tunnel be regulated by a specially appointed international body.</p> - -</div> -</blockquote> -</div> - -<div class="topspace1"></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum">[59]</span></p> - -<h2> -<img src="images/i_chapter_4_header.png" alt="Four" /> -<br />Four -</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="xxxlarge">A</span><span class="smcap">ll at -once</span>, it seems, the entire British press was in an uproar of -criticism against the Channel tunnel and its unfortunate promoters. -The <cite>Sunday Times</cite> pretty well expressed a common reaction -of newspapers and periodicals to the latest developments when it said, -in an editorial, "We confess to experiencing a feeling of relief on -hearing of the interdiction of [Sir Edward Watkin's] progress" in his -"working day and night to put an end to that insular position which -has in past times more than once proved our sheet anchor of safety. -We sincerely hope that Sir E. Watkin's project will shortly receive -its final <i xml:lang="fr">coup de grâce</i>. No doubt," it added -presciently, "he will not yield without a resolute struggle."</p> - -<p>Some hard things were said in the press about the great -tunnel promoter. He was accused in various publications of -"adroit and unscrupulous lobbying" and of dispensing "profuse -hospitality ... persistent and continuous" in pursuit of -his scheme. In the May issue of <cite>The Nineteenth Century</cite>, -which contained a further number of attacks on the tunnel, -Lord Bury reported bitterly on the softening effect that Sir -Edward Watkin's public-relations technique had had on a - -<span class="pagenum">[60]</span> - -friend of his. Asked if he had signed the great petition -against the tunnel, the friend was said to have replied, "No, -I have not; I am strongly against the construction of the -Tunnel, and I told Watkin so. But he gave a party of us, the -other day, an excellent luncheon, and was very civil in showing -us everything; so I should not like to do an unhandsome -thing to him by signing the protest."</p> - -<p>An editorialist in a periodical called <cite>All the Year Round</cite>, -which formerly had been put out by Charles Dickens, wrote -of the "extraordinary vigor" with which Sir Edward was -pushing his tunnel. The editorialist dwelt in satirical fashion -on the manner in which prominent persons were "perpetually -being whisked down to Dover by special trains, -conducted into vaults in the chalk, made amiable with lunch -and sparkling wines, and whisked back in return specials to -dilate to their friends (and, incidentally, to the public) on -the peculiar charm of Pommery and Greno consumed in a -chamber excavated far under the sea." The writer found Sir -Garnet Wolseley's argument, that the English end of the -tunnel could be seized, "on reflection to be perfectly feasible." -He asked, "Can anyone suppose that if such a government -as that which was formed by the Communists were by any -chance ... to rule France, the danger that the temptation -to make such a grand coup as the conquest and plunder of -England would be too much for them would not be a very -real and very present one?" And he wound up by warning -"that French troops might checkmate our fleet by simply -walking underneath it, and ... take a revenge for Waterloo, -the remote possibility of which must make every Englishman -shudder."</p> - -<p>The probable future effects of the Channel tunnel upon -the nervous systems of Englishmen were the subject of intense -speculation in most of the press, as a matter of fact. -Almost without exception, the prognosis of this hypothetical - -<span class="pagenum">[61]</span> - -nervous condition was grave. If, nowadays, the capacity to -maintain extraordinary spiritual fortitude under conditions -of national emergency has come to be regarded almost as -a basic characteristic of the British people, it is a characteristic -that the Victorian British press seemed not to be aware -of. Almost unanimously, the press warned that part of the -price of constructing a tunnel would be the occurrence of -wild periodic alarms among the population. "Perpetual panics -and increased military expenditure are the natural result -of such a change as that which will convert us from an island -into a peninsula," an editorial in <cite>John Bull</cite> declared. The -London <cite>Daily News</cite> demanded to know whether "anyone who -is in the least acquainted with English character and history" -could deny the country's susceptibility to periodic -panics. The <cite>Daily News</cite> dwelt apprehensively on the inevitable -result of panics arising out of the construction of a -Channel tunnel:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>We should be constantly beginning expensive -and elaborate schemes for strengthening the defences -according to the fashionable idea of the -day.... They would be about half carried out -by the time the next panic occurred, and then -they would be obsolete.... Now it would be -elaborate fortifications at Dover itself; now a -great chain of forts to hem it in from inland; -now the old scheme of the fortification of London; -now the establishment of forts out at sea -over the tunnel.... Is it worth while to run the -chance...?</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>The most diverse arguments were advanced in the press -against the construction of the tunnel. In the May issue of -<cite>The Nineteenth Century</cite>, Major-General Sir E. Hamley -raised the question of whether the French, invading Britain - -<span class="pagenum">[62]</span> - -by train through the tunnel, might not seize some distinguished -English people and carry the captives along on the -engine as hostages, so that however thoroughly the officer in -charge of the defensive apparatus at the English end were -alerted to their presence, "still he might well be expected to -pause if suddenly certified that he would be destroying, along -with the enemy in the Tunnel, some highly important Englishmen." -Another writer, referring to the responsibility and -possibly also to the character of the officer in charge of -the tunnel defenses, observed thoughtfully that "the commandant -of Dover would carry the key of England in his -pocket." Still another commentator wondered if responsibility -for making a decision to blow up the tunnel might not -be too much even for an English Prime Minister:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>The Premier might think himself justified in -destroying twenty millions of property ... but -also, he might not. He might be an undecided -man, or a man expecting defeat by the Opposition, -or a man paralyzed by the knowledge that -the tunnel was full of innocent people whom his -order would condemn to instant death, in a -form which is at once most painful and most -appalling to the imagination. They would all be -drowned in darkness. The responsibility would -be overwhelming for an individual, and a Cabinet, -if dispersed, takes hours to bring together.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>In his article in <cite>The Nineteenth Century</cite> Lord Bury, going -under the assumption that a Prime Minister in a period of -gravest national emergency would indeed be able to haul his -Cabinet colleagues and military advisers together in reasonable -time to consider having the tunnel blown up, asked his -readers to conjure up the painful scene at Downing Street:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[63]</span></p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Imagine him for a moment sitting in consultation. -His military advisers tell him that the -decisive moment has come. "I think, gentlemen," -says the minister, turning to his colleagues, -"that we are all agreed—the Tunnel must be -immediately destroyed. Fire the mine!" "There -is one other point," says the officer, "on which -I request instructions—at what time am I to -execute the order?" "At once, sir; telegraph at -once, and in five minutes the blasting charge -can be fired." "But," persists the officer, "trains -laden with non-combatants are at this moment -in the Tunnel. They enter continuously at -twenty minutes' intervals; there are never less -than four trains, two each way, in the Tunnel -at the same time; each train contains some three -hundred persons ... I could not destroy twelve -hundred non-combatants without very special -instructions."</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>And Lord Bury asked, "What would any minister, under -such circumstances, do?"</p> - -<p>As for the proposed defensive measure of flooding the tunnel -in case of invasion, General Sir Lintorn Simmons, writing -in the same issue of <cite>The Nineteenth Century</cite>, considered -it to be a dubious one at best, since, he observed, "it is not -to be believed that a great country like France, with the engineering -talent she possesses, could not find the means" of -pumping all the flood waters out again.</p> - -<p>An assertion by Dr. Siemens, the electric-lighting expert, -that the tunnel could easily be rendered unusable to invaders -if its British defenders would pump carbonic-acid gas into -it to asphyxiate the intruders, was similarly challenged, in -the correspondence columns of the <cite>Times</cite>, by a -scientific colleague - -<span class="pagenum">[64]</span> - -of his, Dr. John Tyndall. Dr. Tyndall offered to -wager Dr. Siemens that the latter could in six hours devise -countermeasures that would enable troops to pass unscathed -through the tunnel, gas or no gas. Dr. Tyndall illustrated -his point by describing an experiment he said he had made -on the very day of his letter, while coming down home from -London by train, on a part of the South-Eastern line where -the speed was thirty miles an hour:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>I took out my watch and determined how -long I could hold my breath without inhalation. -By emptying my lungs very thoroughly, and -then charging them very fully, I brought the -time up to nearly a minute and a half. In this -interval I might have been urged through more -than half a mile of carbonic-acid gas with no -injury and with little inconvenience to myself.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Dr. Tyndall concluded, firmly, "The problem of supplying -fresh air to persons surrounded by an irrespirable atmosphere -has been already solved by Mr. Fleuss and others."</p> - -<p>Then there were even more disturbing objections. Could -the defenders at the English end always be relied on as absolutely -loyal Englishmen? <cite>The Field</cite>, without naming any -names, wrote of "proof that in the United Kingdom itself ... -there are numbers of daring and reckless persons" who, "to -gain their sinister ends ... would not hesitate to sacrifice the -independence of the country." Frankly, the paper feared possible -acts of treachery in the tunnel by "a handful of unprincipled -desperadoes." And the <cite>Spectator</cite>, visualizing the thing -in more detail, suggested that its readers "consider ... the -danger of treachery ... the rush on the tunnel being made -by Irish Republicans in league with the French, while the -wires of the telegraph were cut, and all swift communications -between Dover and London suddenly suspended." Taking all - -<span class="pagenum">[65]</span> - -the risks of the tunnel into account, the <cite>Spectator</cite> said it -could not bring itself to believe that "even in this age, with -its mania for rapid riding and comfortable locomotion, such -a project will be tolerated." The <cite>Sunday Times</cite>, for its part, -pointed out that, as things stood, "the silver streak is a -greater bar to the movements of Nihilists [and] Internationalists -... than is generally believed." But, it added, "with -several trains a day between Paris and London, we should -have an amount of fraternising between the discontented denizens -of the great cities of both countries, which would yield -very unsatisfactory results on this side of the Channel."</p> - -<p>Meetings and debates to discuss the tunnel menace were -held all over England, and even at a meeting of so progressive -an organization as the Balloon Society of Great Britain, -which was held in the lecture room of the Royal Aquarium at -Westminster, the subject was discussed with "some warmth -of feeling ... on both sides." There was a wide circulation -of sensational pamphlets, written in pseudohistorical style, -that purported to chronicle the sudden downfall of England -at the end of the nineteenth century through the existence of -a Channel tunnel—Dover taken, the garrison butchered, the -English end of the tunnel incessantly vomiting forth armed -men, London invaded, and England enslaved—all of this in -a few hours' time.</p> - -<p>In contrast to these manifold cries of alarm among the -English, it seems never to have occurred to anybody in -France at the time seriously to suggest that if a tunnel were -to be constructed, a hostile English force, supported by an -English navy in control of the Channel sea, might suddenly -seize the French entrance by surprise and use it as a bridgehead -for a general invasion of France. A few French commentators -did, however, remind the anti-tunnel forces in -England that while the English had set hostile foot on French -soil some two or three times in as many centuries—not to mention - -<span class="pagenum">[66]</span> - -her having kept physical control over the port of Calais -for over two hundred years following the Battle of Crécy—English -soil had remained untouched by France. Most of the -French newspapers appeared to be unable to fathom the -cause of the whole tunnel commotion, which was generally put -down to English eccentricity. Several French journals, surveying -all the fulminations on the other side of the Channel, -even took an attitude toward the English of a certain detached -sympathy. One of the more interesting French commentaries -on the uproar in England appeared in the <cite>Revue -des Deux Mondes</cite>. In this article, the author expressed some -doubt that British military men who denounced the dangers -of the tunnel were really convinced of the reality of those -dangers. For them to do so, he suggested, one would have to -presuppose, on one side of the Channel, a "France again a -conqueror with, at her head, a man gifted with ... an incredible -depth in crime; a secret, an almost incredible diligence -in preparation as in execution," and, on the other side, -"a governor of Dover who would be an idiot or a traitor, a -War Minister who would not possess the brain of a bird, a -Foreign Minister who would allow himself to be deceived in -doltish fashion." How could the French possibly assemble -perhaps a thousand railway carriages in England without -arousing the suspicions of British Intelligence? How could -the vanguard of the French invaders get through the tunnel -with all their required ammunition, horses, and supplies, and -get them all unloaded in a few minutes—would this vanguard -sally forth without biscuits? The author found no solution to -these particular problems. Instead, he devoted himself to the -larger issue:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>The day the inauguration of the Submarine -Tunnel will be celebrated, England will no -longer be an island, and that is a stupendous - -<span class="pagenum">[67]</span> - -event in the history of an island people.... Islanders -have always considered themselves the -favorites of Providence, which has undertaken -to provide for their security and independence.... -They congratulate themselves on their separation -from the rest of the world by natural -frontiers over which nobody can squabble. They -feel that they hold their destiny in their own -hands, and that the effect of the follies and -crimes of others could not reach them.... -Their character is affected by this. Like Great -Britain, every Englishman is an island where -it is not easy to land.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>And the article asked, wonderingly, "What would an England -that was not an island be?"</p> - -<p>The deliberations of the scientific investigating committee -appointed by the War Office and presided over by Sir Archibald -Alison lasted from the latter part of February until the -middle of May. In the committee's report of its findings to -the War Office, the complexity and solemn nature of the questions -laid before it were indicated by their mere classification -and subclassification. Thus, the contingencies for rendering -a Channel tunnel absolutely useless to an enemy were considered -under the headings of:</p> - -<p class="p2"> -I. Surprise from Within<br /> -II. Attack from Without -</p> - -<p>And the committee reported that it had considered measures -to secure the tunnel against (I) under such subcategories -as:</p> - -<p class="p2"> -1. Fortifications<br /> -2. Closure or temporary obstructions<br /> - -<span class="pagenum">[68]</span> - -3. Explosion by mines or charges<br /> -4. Flooding<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a. Temporary</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">b. Permanent</span> -</p> - -<p>After reviewing the situation in great detail, and from -every aspect, the committee suggested a long list of precautionary -measures that, it said, it would be necessary to use, -singly or in combination, to protect and seal off the tunnel -against any enemy attempts to invade England directly -through the tunnel or by seizing the English end from the -outside and using it as a bridgehead for invasion. The list -included these recommendations:</p> - -<p>The mouth of the tunnel should be protected by "a portcullis -or other defensible barrier."</p> - -<p>A trap bridge should be set in connection with this portcullis.</p> - -<p>Means should be provided for closing off the ventilation, -and for "discharging irrespirable gases or vapors into the -tunnel."</p> - -<p>Arrangements should be made for rapidly discharging -loads of shingle into the land portion of the tunnel, shutting -it off.</p> - -<p>The land portion of the tunnel should be thoroughly mined -with explosives capable of being fired by remote control exercised -not only from within the central fort at Dover but -also from more distant points inland, so that even if the protective -fortress fell to the enemy, the tunnel still could be -permanently destroyed.</p> - -<p>In addition, a truck loaded with explosives and equipped -with a time fuse should be kept ready by the entrance, so that -it could be sent coasting down into the tunnel for some distance, -there to explode automatically.</p> - -<p>Arrangements should be made for temporarily flooding -the tunnel by means of culverts operated by sluice valves. - -<span class="pagenum">[69]</span> - -("If by chance the sluice valves should not act, Measure -XVIII could be resorted to, or the tunnel could be blocked -by one or more of the means ... mentioned in Measures -VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII.")</p> - -<p>The tunnel should emerge inland, out of firing range from -the sea. And it was imperative that it emerge under the guns -and "in the immediate vicinity of a first-class fortress, in the -modern acceptation of the term, a fortress which could only -be reduced after a protracted siege both by land and sea."</p> - -<p>And so on.</p> - -<p>Even after drawing up all these elaborate precautions for -closing the tunnel from the English end, the Channel Tunnel -Defense Committee was left with some nagging doubts about -their adequacy. In a concluding paragraph of its report, the -committee pointed out that "it must always be borne in mind -that, in dealing with physical agencies, an amount of uncertainty -exists," and that it was "impossible to eliminate human -fallibility." As a consequence, the members stated -cautiously, "it would be presumptuous to place absolute reliance -upon even the most comprehensive and complete arrangements."</p> - -<p>The committee also agreed, almost as an afterthought, -that the Channel tunnel proposed by Sir Edward Watkin -could not be sanctioned in the form envisaged, on the -grounds that it did not meet the committee's conditions for -emerging inland, out of firing range from the sea, and in the -immediate vicinity of a first-class fortress. It also rejected, -on the first of these grounds, a proposal by the lesser Channel -Tunnel Company for a tunnel that would start from -within Dover and for the sake of easy destructibility run -right under a nearby corner of Dover Castle—and on the -grounds that this entrance would be <em>too</em> much in the vicinity -of a fortress. And the committee objected that since the -proposed entrance would emerge "in the heart of the main - -<span class="pagenum">[70]</span> - -defences and in the midst of the town" any fire from these -defenses "would inflict great injury on the town and its -inhabitants, and the general defence would be much embarrassed."</p> - -<p>At the War Office, the report of the Alison committee was -supplemented by another long memorandum on the tunnel -question by Sir Garnet Wolseley. In this document of some -twenty thousand words, which was conveniently furnished -with numerous marginal headings like "Why tunnels through -the Alps afford no argument in favor of the Channel Tunnel," -"The Tunnel an acknowledged danger," "What national -advantage then justifies its construction," "Many -tunnels will be constructed," "What we owe to the Channel," -and "Danger of surprise of our fortifications without warning! -Fatal result!!," Sir Garnet recapitulated and elaborated -at great length upon his previous arguments against -the tunnel and added several new ones. Sir Garnet went into -fine detail concerning the possibility of a sudden seizure of -the English end of the tunnel and, simultaneously, Dover, by -the French. For example, to his previous description of how -hostile French forces might come by train through the tunnel -dressed in ordinary clothes he added the detail that they -might also travel in the carriages "at express speed, with -the blinds down, in their uniforms and fully armed"—their -co-conspirators at the other end meanwhile having rendered -it "not likely that ticket-takers or telegraph operators on -the French side would be allowed any channel of communicating -with us until the operation had been effected." Sir -Garnet was equally explicit about the situation at Dover. -Warning that "the civilian may start in horror at the statement -that Dover could also be taken by surprise," General -Wolseley declared that, as things stood, anybody at all, any -night, was free to walk up to any of the forts at Dover, and, -"if he would announce himself to be an officer returning home - -<span class="pagenum">[71]</span> - -to barracks, the wicket would be opened to him, and if he -entered he would see but two men, one the sentry, the other -the noncommissioned officer who had been roused up from -sleep by the sentry to unlock the gate." General Wolseley -demonstrated how such a caller might well be "a dashing -partisan leader" of a French raiding party that had landed -in Dover in the dead of night, in calm or foggy weather, from -steamers, and had already quietly knocked down and silenced -any watchman or other witnesses in the dark area. He showed -how such a <i xml:lang="fr">soi-disant</i> English officer and his accomplices -"might thus easily obtain an entrance into every fort in -Dover; the sentry and the sleepy sergeant might be easily -disposed of. The rifles of our sentries at home are not loaded, -and the few men on guard [could be] made prisoners whilst -asleep on their guard bed." Thus, General Wolseley said, the -intruders could quickly effect the seizure of all the forts in -Dover—"In an hour's time from the moment when our end -of the tunnel was taken possession of by the enemy, large reinforcements -could reach Dover through the tunnel, and ... -before morning dawned, Dover might easily be in possession -of 20,000 of the enemy, and every succeeding hour would add -to that number." With Dover done in, London would be next, -and the future commander-in-chief of the British Army went -on to show how the enemy force, now swelled to 150,000 men, -once it reached London and occupied the Thames from there -to the arsenal at Woolwich, could dictate its own terms of -peace, which he estimated at a rough guess as the payment of -six hundred million pounds and the surrender of the British -Fleet, with the English end of the tunnel remaining permanently -in the hands of the French, so that "the perpetual -yoke of servitude would be ours for ever."</p> - -<p>Concerning all the various measures proposed to protect -the tunnel, Sir Garnet had no confidence in them at all. He -stressed once more the unreliability of anything mechanical - -<span class="pagenum">[72]</span> - -or electrical, and he added the new argument that whatever -secret devices, such as mines, were installed in the tunnel for -its protection were bound to come to the knowledge of the -enemy sooner or later. Any military secret, General Wolseley -said, was a purchasable secret; he illustrated his argument -with an observation concerning a meeting between Napoleon I -and Alexander I of Russia:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>No two men were more loyally followed or -had more absolute authority than Napoleon -and Alexander. No two men had a stronger wish -or stronger motive for keeping secret the -words which passed between them personally in -a most private conference in a raft in the middle -of a river. Yet, by paying a large sum our Ministry -obtained the exact terms of the secret -agreement the two had there arrived at. Moreover, -our Ministry obtained that information -so immediately that they were able to act in anticipation -of the designs formed by the two Emperors.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Finally, having discussed, in the most elaborate fashion, all -the measures that his previous opposition to the scheme had -caused to be proposed for the defense of the tunnel, Sir Garnet -condemned them on the ground of their very elaborateness. -"If in any one of these respects our security fails, it -fails in all," he wrote of the multiple precautions recommended -by Sir Archibald Alison's scientific committee. Thus, -in General Wolseley's eyes, the defense of the tunnel was foredoomed -as a self-defeating process, and was therefore a practical -impossibility.</p> - -<p>The question of the multiplicity of the proposed defenses -was handled in different fashion in a further War Office memorandum -on the tunnel, issued by the Duke of Cambridge, the - -<span class="pagenum">[73]</span> - -Army Commander-in-Chief and a cousin of Queen Victoria. -"Nothing has impressed me more with the magnitude of the -danger which the construction of this proposed tunnel would -bring with it," the Duke of Cambridge wrote, "than the -amount of precautions and their elaborateness [proposed -by] this Scientific Committee.... If this danger was small, -as some would have the country believe, why should all these -complicated precautions be necessary?" The Duke of Cambridge -fully endorsed the position taken by Sir Garnet -Wolseley. He protested "most emphatically" against the -construction of a Channel tunnel and "would most earnestly -beg Her Majesty's Government" to consider with the utmost -gravity the perils of surprise attack upon the country arising -out of even a modified scheme that would take into account -the recommendations of the Alison committee.</p> - -<p>To his memorandum His Royal Highness appended a copy -of a report that he had had his intelligence service put together -specially in connection with the tunnel question—a -long account purporting to show some hundred and seven -instances occurring in the history of the previous two hundred -years where hostilities between states had been started -without any prior declaration of war, or even any decent -notification.</p> - -<p>If anything seemed likely to have been successfully blocked -up and finished off under all this bombardment, it was Sir -Edward Watkin's Channel-tunnel scheme. Curiously enough, -the Board of Trade, which had ordered the tunnel workings -stopped back in April and had no intention of issuing a working -permit for them now, was not altogether convinced of -this. In fact, since April the Board had been developing the -suspicion that something peculiar might be going on down -under the sea at Shakespeare Cliff. Back in the early part of -April, the Board of Trade's order to the Submarine Continental -Railway Company to stop its tunneling activities was - -<span class="pagenum">[74]</span> - -received, as one might expect, with some anguish. The first -formal reaction was a letter from the permanent secretary -of the company to T. H. Farrer, the secretary of the Board -of Trade, saying that the company would of course acquiesce -in the orders of the board, but begging, at the same time, to -be allowed to continue the present gallery extending from the -main, or Number Two, shaft at Shakespeare Cliff a short -distance further, so as to be able to complete the first stage -of the works—the junction of the main gallery with the new -gallery extending from the ventilating, or Number Three, -shaft. This letter was followed on April 9 by another from -Sir Edward Watkin addressed to Joseph Chamberlain, the -president of the Board of Trade, urgently repeating the request, -this time on the ground of safety. Sir Edward wrote -Mr. Chamberlain:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>The moment the Board of the Tunnel Company -decided to obey you, I peremptorily ordered -the works to be stopped. The [boring] -machine has been silent since Thursday evening. -But the Engineer sends me a very startling report -and warning.</p> - -<p>He fears <em>defective ventilation</em> [owing to -stoppage of the air-driven boring machine] and -danger to life—quite apart from depriving a -fine body of skilled workmen of their bread, and -general loss and damage in money. I can only -reply to him that I am acting under your order. -Still ... this is the first time the ventilation of -a mine has been so interfered with. Should the -engineer's alarm be well founded, and should -men faint from bad air at the end of the gallery, -there would be no means of getting them out -alive.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[75]</span></p> - -<p>Sir Edward added, without changing his tone of humane -agitation, that only the day before he had received a request -from the Duke of Edinburgh to be allowed to see the tunnel -workings, along with the Duchess, ten days hence, and that -the Speaker of the House of Commons had already arranged -to visit the tunnel "on Saturday, the 22nd, leaving Charing -Cross at eleven." "What must be done?" he asked. Mr. Chamberlain -replied promptly by telegraph that if the stopping -of the machinery in the tunnel was constituting a danger to -life, he authorized Sir Edward, pending further investigation -of the situation by the Board of Trade, temporarily to keep -the machinery going to the extent of preventing this danger. -However, he followed up this telegram with a letter to Sir -Edward in which he expressed himself as being "not able to -understand the exact nature of the physical danger anticipated" -by Sir Edward in the tunnel if the workings were -stopped. "I do not see the necessity for workmen remaining -in the tunnel where the ventilation is likely to be defective," -Mr. Chamberlain observed. He added that he was making arrangements -to have one of the Board of Trade inspectors -visit the tunnel to investigate the situation.</p> - -<p>On April 11, the Board of Trade duly telegraphed Sir Edward -that its chief inspector of railways, Colonel Yolland, -of the Royal Engineers, would be at Dover at noon the next -day to investigate the ventilation problem in the tunnel. Sir -Edward, however, wired back that he was unable to meet the -Colonel at Dover that day and could not make an appointment -with him "until after the visit to the works of the Duke -of Edinburgh on Tuesday next."</p> - -<p>To this the Board of Trade replied, on April 13, that -Colonel Yolland had been instructed to visit the tunnel works -"entirely out of regard to the very urgent and grave question -raised in your letter ... respecting the ventilation of -the boring" and that the department was finding it difficult - -<span class="pagenum">[76]</span> - -to understand why Colonel Yolland's visit to the tunnel -should be postponed. Sir Edward's answer to this was to invite -Mr. Chamberlain down into the tunnel personally, so -that Sir Edward could "show and explain everything," since -"until you have seen, and had explained to you, on the spot -as Mr. Gladstone did and had, and as we hope the Duke of -Edinburgh will next Tuesday, the nature and condition of -our works, it is, in my humble judgement, impossible to discuss -the question with exactitude." He said nothing about the -possibility of Mr. Chamberlain's or the Duke and Duchess of -Edinburgh's being asphyxiated in the tunnel. Mr. Chamberlain -declined the invitation; he said he had ordered Colonel -Yolland down to Dover immediately to report on the tunnel. -But Colonel Yolland didn't get down into the tunnel to make -an inspection that month. Some impediment, some unanticipated -difficulty always seemed to arise when things appeared -to be about to straighten themselves out. By the beginning of -May, the Board of Trade, still trying, flatly informed Sir -Edward that Colonel Yolland and Walter Murton, its solicitor, -would inspect the tunnel workings on May 6. But on -May 4 the general manager of the South-Eastern Railway -replied that "Sir Edward Watkin wishes me to say that he -regrets very much that it will be quite impossible to arrange -for such inspection to take place on that date." He suggested -that Sir Edward could arrange it for the 13th. The Board -of Trade, replying immediately, insisted on its taking place -"not later than Wednesday next." That letter was met with -the answer that "Sir Edward Watkin is at present out of -town, and is not expected to return until early next week." -He must have stayed out of town quite a while, because the -Board of Trade heard nothing from the company until May -18, when the directors of the company, writing jointly, told -the department that while they acquiesced in the request of -Colonel Yolland and Mr. Murton to visit the tunnel, unfortunately - -<span class="pagenum">[77]</span> - -"the machinery is under repair," and as a consequence -"it would not be ... safe for those gentlemen to go down the -shaft." However, the directors added, hopefully, they felt -sure that "by working the machinery, air compressors, and -pumping engines for a few days and nights" their engineers -could get everything in order for a proper tour of inspection. -On May 24 Mr. Murton tried again. He wrote the tunnel -proprietors, notifying them that "Colonel Yolland and myself -propose to inspect the tunnel works on Saturday next the -27th instant." But the company's reply to the letter was regretful. -It said that "the repairs to the winding engine cannot -be completed until after Whitsuntide."</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, Mr. Murton was having his difficulties with the -solicitor of the South-Eastern over the legal question of -the company's claims to ancient manorial rights to the use -of the foreshore at Shakespeare Cliff, as the tone of various -letters he was obliged to write indicates. For example:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p> -<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="p3">May I remind you that I have not yet received<br /> -the abstract of title; I beg that you will at once<br /> -send it to me....</p> - -<div class="center"> -<p class="center">"I am, & c.,<br /> -<span class="smcap">Walter Murton</span>." -</p> -<br /> -</div> -</blockquote> - -<p>Or again:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p> -<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="p3">I am without answer to my letter of the 31st<br /> -ultimo. I beg you will let me know without further<br /> -delay whether you do or do not propose to<br /> -send me abstract of title.</p> - -<div class="center"> -<p class="center">"I am, & c.,<br /> -<span class="smcap">Walter Murton</span>." -</p> -<br /> -</div> -</blockquote> - -<p>Or yet again:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[78]</span></p> - -<blockquote> -<p> -<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="p3">Will you kindly write me a reply to my letters<br /> -which I can send on to the Board of Trade.</p> - -<div class="center"> -<p class="center">"Yours, & c.,<br /> -<span class="smcap">Walter Murton</span>." -</p> -<br /> -</div> -</blockquote> - -<p>By June 9, the Board of Trade became quite out of patience -over the matter of inspecting the tunnel. Introducing -an ominous note, it informed Sir Edward that Mr. Chamberlain -"feels that he must insist upon this visit of inspection, -and if he understands that permission is refused, will be compelled -to place the matter in the hands of his legal advisers, -with the view of determining and enforcing the rights of the -Crown." Sir Edward was indignant. In reply, he declared that -he was being subjected to an "undeserved threat." Mr. Chamberlain, -responding, denied that the threat was undeserved. -He wrote firmly:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="p3">Hitherto, on one ground or another, this inspection -has been again and again postponed.</p> - -<p class="p3">I am bound to guard the rights of the Crown -in this matter, and I desire to ascertain whether -those rights have up to the present time been -in any way invaded.</p> - -<p class="p3">This is the object of the inspection, and as it -will not brook delay ... I have only now to ask -an immediate answer stating definitely when it -can take place.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Sir Edward's answer was once more to beg Mr. Chamberlain -himself to join a party of prominent visitors going down -to see the tunnel; he added that "Colonel Yolland shall be at -once communicated with."</p> - -<p>But by various intervening circumstances—joint letters -got up by the tunnel promoters to the Prime Minister and to - -<span class="pagenum">[79]</span> - -the Board of Trade protesting hard treatment, and so on—the -Board of Trade found itself brooking delays all through -the month of June. On June 26, the Board of Trade wrote in -stern fashion to Sir Edward that the demands of the Board of -Trade to inspect the tunnel workings "have been repeatedly -formulated and persistently evaded on behalf of the Submarine -Continental Railway Company," and that the only way -the company could avoid legal action by the Crown was "to -consent <em>at once</em> to the proposed inspection." There was no -satisfactory reply from the tunnel proprietors, and on July 5 -the Board of Trade, after due notification to the Submarine -Continental Railway Company, obtained an order from Mr. -Justice Kay, in the High Court of Justice, restraining the -tunnel promoters and their employees from "further working -or excavating, or taking or interfering with any chalk, soil, -or other substance" in the Channel tunnel without the consent -of the Board of Trade, and ordering them to give the department -access to the tunnel to inspect the workings. In the -course of these judicial proceedings, a number of affidavits -presented to Mr. Justice Kay by the Government revealed the -interesting information that the Board of Trade, finding itself -unable to obtain access for its inspectors into the tunnel, for -some time past had felt itself obliged to station watchers on -top of Shakespeare Cliff and on the sea regularly to spy -upon the tunnel workings and to count the number of bucketfuls -of soil it maintained had been removed from the workings. -And, according to all its calculations, the Board of -Trade had little doubt that the proprietors of the Submarine -Continental Railway Company were deliberately and surreptitiously -tunneling under the sea below low-water mark, on -Crown property, and burrowing into and removing chalk of -the realm.</p> - -<p>Intimation of what was in store for him in the High Court -of Justice reached Sir Edward Watkin at the very time that - -<span class="pagenum">[80]</span> - -he was showing a party of distinguished people, including -Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal, around -the tunnel. A glimpse of that interesting visit is contained in -a report in the London <cite>Times</cite>:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>M. de Lesseps, while down in the tunnel and -under the sea, proposed the health of the Queen, -remarking that the completion of the work was -required in the interest of mankind.</p> - -<p>When all the visitors were again above -ground, luncheon was served in a marquee.</p> - -<p>Sir E. Watkin, in proposing the health of M. -de Lesseps, remarked that there were those in -our country who seemed to consider that the -work of the company they had just inspected -was a crime. He had just received a telegram informing -him that he would have to answer on -Wednesday next at the instigation of the President -of the Board of Trade before a court of law -for having committed the crime of carrying on -these experiments. (Hisses and groans.)</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Somewhat revealingly, Sir Edward added, when the signs -of indignation subsided, that</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>For his own part, if he was to be committed -by a court of law for contempt, he should have -this consolation—that the proceedings which -had been taken against him had been delayed -sufficiently long to enable him with his colleagues -to have the honor of entertaining M. de -Lesseps, in whom he should have a witness, if -he had to call one, to prove that they had been -engaged in a work which had been as successful -as he believed it would be ultimately useful.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[81]</span></p> - -<p>At long last, supported by all the might of the Crown, -Colonel Yolland got to the tunnel on July 8 to make his inspection -of the workings. But upon his arrival there he found, -to his chagrin, that "I was not provided, at the time ... with -all the necessary means for making the measurements, and -taking the requisite bearings" in the tunnel, and he was -obliged to put his inspection off once more. Properly -equipped, he descended into the tunnel a week later, on Saturday, -July 15, and inspected everything, including the boring -apparatus that Sir Edward had insisted had to be used to -ventilate the gallery and prevent loss of life. What Colonel -Yolland found there caused the Board of Trade, five days -later, to send a most severe letter to the tunnel proprietors. -In it, the Board declared:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="p3">1. That the means of ventilating the tunnel -could have been and be so readily disconnected -from the boring machine (i.e., by the movement -of a single lever that would pour a stream of -compressed air coming from the supply pipe directly -into the tunnel) that it has never been -necessary that a single inch of cutting should -have taken place in order to protect life or to secure -ventilation, nor can such necessity arise in -the future.</p> - -<p class="p3">2. That in spite of the repeated orders of the -Board of Trade, and the assurances of the Secretary -of the Submarine Railway Company and -Sir Edward Watkin himself that those orders -were acquiesced in and submitted to, the substantial -work of boring has nevertheless been -carried to a distance of more than 600 yards -from low-water mark (thus constituting a trespass -on the property of the Crown).</p> -</blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[82]</span></p> - -<p>Calling these acts "a flagrant breach of faith" on the part -of the tunnel promoters, the Board of Trade wrote that -henceforth the order of the court "must be strictly and literally -adhered to," and that no work of maintenance, ventilation, -drainage, or otherwise would be allowed without the -express permission of the board. Sir Edward Watkin and his -fellow directors, after some days, replied in hurt fashion to -what they termed "the unjustified accusations directed -against them." They reiterated their concern for the health -of their employees in the tunnel, and in connection with their -tunneling activities below low-water mark they came up with -the ingenious explanation that "many visits of Royal and -other personages have been, by request, made to the tunnel -for purposes of inspection, and it was essential fully to work -the machine from time to time for the purpose of such visits." -They also sent a protest to Mr. Gladstone at 10 Downing -Street against their hard treatment, and asked for the Prime -Minister's intercession with the Board of Trade. But there -was nothing doing. Mr. Gladstone politely refused to act and -replied that the actions of the Board of Trade had the full -sanction of the Government.</p> - -<p>On August 5, Colonel Yolland descended once more into -the tunnel to make an inspection. He found things there in a -rather run-down condition. "The tunnel is not nearly so dry -as it was when I first saw it," he wrote in his report to the -Board of Trade, referring to the fact that the engineers had -ceased work on the drainage of the gallery. Colonel Yolland -also mentioned in his report that during his previous visit, on -July 15, "I had an escape from what might have been a serious -accident. The wet chalk in the bottom of the tunnel, between -and outside the rails of the tramways, is so slippery -and greasy that it is almost impossible to keep on one's feet; -and, on one occasion, I suddenly slipped, and fell at full -length on my back, and the back of my head came against - -<span class="pagenum">[83]</span> - -one of the iron rails of the tramway—fortunately with no -great force or my skull might have been seriously bruised or -fractured." The Colonel added, "There is not light enough in -the tunnel from the electric lamps to enable one to see one's -way through ... so that it is necessary to carry a lamp in -one hand and a note-book in the other, to record the different -measurements." The Colonel then gave some startling news. -He declared that, according to his measurements, somebody -had advanced the length of the tunnel some seventy yards -since his inspection on July 15.</p> - -<p>When this report reached the Board of Trade, the department, -outraged, made a motion before the High Court of -Justice to cite the tunnel promoters for contempt. However, -a cloud of doubt descended on the issue when the tunnel promoters -claimed in court that Colonel Yolland's calculations -were in error. The motion was put off with the promoters' -promising to obey to the letter the demands of the Board of -Trade. Later on in the month, Colonel Yolland, after making -a further inspection, conceded that, owing to the difficulties -of working in the tunnel, he had made some error of calculation. -The true advance made in the tunnel since July 15, he -said, was thirty-six yards—a figure he said was confirmed by -the tunnel company's engineer. Colonel Yolland reported that -the company engineers had installed a pump at the eastern -end of the tunnel to force out the water accumulating there. -He added, somewhat testily, "Of course men had to be employed -in erecting this pump in the tunnel and in working it -when it was ready, and as the boring machine has not been -made use of for the purpose of cutting chalk, this ... conclusively -proves what I had stated in my former reports, that it -was not necessary to cut an inch of chalk for the purpose of -ventilating and draining the tunnel."</p> - -<p>Altogether, and with all the difficulties they had encountered, -the tunnel promoters had succeeded in boring the tunnel - -<span class="pagenum">[84]</span> - -for a distance of 2,100 yards, or a little less than a mile -and a quarter, toward France. The operations at the French -end, which came to a stop in March of 1883, completed -2,009 yards of pilot tunnel from the bottom of the shaft -by the cliffs at Sangatte.</p> - -<p>In the middle of August, the Government, having received -all the reports from the War Office and the Board of Trade -on the subject of the tunnel, caused the rival Channel-tunnel -bills that had been brought before it to be set aside, and at -the same time Mr. Chamberlain announced in the House of -Commons that the Government had decided to propose, early -the following year, the appointment of a Joint Select Committee -of the House of Lords and the House of Commons to -dispose of the whole tunnel question as conclusively as possible. -In the meantime, he announced the Government's intention -of publishing a Blue Book containing all the principal -documents and correspondence concerning the tunnel. The -Blue Book was issued in October, and once again the wrath -of the English press fell upon the tunnel project and its promoters. -The tone of the press comment was most majestically -represented by an editorial in the London <cite>Times</cite>, which had -started off the press campaign against the project the year -before. The <cite>Times</cite> wrote that, unless it was much mistaken, -"the publication of the Blue Book will be found to have -closed the whole question of the Channel Tunnel for a long -time to come."</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Undermined by land, overmined at sea, sluice-ridden -at its entrance, and liable to asphyxiating -vapors at intervals, the Tunnel will hardly -be regarded by nervous travellers as a very -pleasant alternative even to the horrors of seasickness....</p> - -<p>The whole system of defense must forever be - -<span class="pagenum">[85]</span> - -at the mercy of blunderers, criminals, and madmen. -It is true that we take somewhat similar -risks in ordinary railway travelling, but imagination -counts for a good deal in such matters, -and the terrors of the Channel Tunnel under an -adequate system of defense might easily affect -the imagination so strongly as to render the -terrors of seasickness insignificant by comparison.</p></blockquote> - -<p>Caught between the forces of claustrophobia and xenophobia, -Sir Edward Watkin's great tunnel project was just -about done for. In Westminster, angry citizens exhibited their -feelings by smashing all the windows of the Channel Tunnel -Company offices there. In the following year, the promised -new investigation into the tunnel question was undertaken by -a joint Parliamentary committee presided over by Lord -Landsdowne. The committee met fourteen times, examined -forty witnesses, and asked them fifty-three hundred and -ninety-six questions. Not unexpectedly, the witnesses included -Sir Garnet Wolseley, now Lord Wolseley. That Lord Wolseley -in the interim had not changed his opinions on the perilous -consequences of a tunnel is evident from his response to -just five of the hundreds of questions put to him by the committee -members.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p class="p3">5233: ... I think you said that supposing -anyone in this room were to go to the barrack -gates [at any of the forts at Dover at night] -and to knock at the door, the door would at -once be opened?—The wicket would be opened -to you.</p> - -<p class="p3">5234: Would it be the case if the person who -went there had a hundred men in his company?—The -man inside would not know that he had - -<span class="pagenum">[86]</span> - -them, he would never suspect a hundred men being -outside; but I would go further and say, -even supposing that he would not open the barrack -gates, the barrack gates are very easily -knocked in.</p> - -<p class="p3">5235: Are there any drawbridges there?—There -are, but they are very seldom, if ever, -drawn up in Dover.</p> - -<p class="p3">5236: You said that if the tunnel were in -existence, it would be necessary that the conditions -of life in Dover should be altered; would -that be one of the conditions which would be -altered?—Yes.</p> - -<p class="p3">5237: And the drawbridges would be up at -night?—The drawbridges would be up at night, -and nobody would be allowed to go in or out -after a certain hour.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>When all the evidence was in, a majority of the joint Parliamentary -committee sided with the views of Lord Wolseley -and voted against any Parliamentary sanction's being given -to a Channel tunnel.</p> - -<p>Sir Edward Watkin kept right on promoting his tunnel -project for quite a while. By 1884—a year, incidentally, -when Lord Wolseley was called away from the country to -command the British expeditionary force that arrived too -late at Khartoum to relieve General Gordon—Sir Edward -was still doing his best to bring the British Army around to -his viewpoint on the tunnel. A series of contemporary illustrations -in the London illustrated weekly publication <cite>The -Graphic</cite> records some views of a tunnel party held during -that year for a group of British Army officers. One of the -engravings shows a number of officers preparing to descend -into the tunnel; the caption reads, "I say, Dear Chappie, if - -<span class="pagenum">[87]</span> - -we invade France through the Tunnel, I hope I shan't be -told off to lead the Advanced Guard." The visit was further -reported on in an accompanying article by one of a few journalists -accompanying the party. From this, it appears that -the condition of the tunnel hadn't improved since the time -that Colonel Yolland nearly split his head open in it. "Under -foot for a great portion of the way," the author said, in describing -how the visitors were drawn along the long gallery -on canvas-hooded trolleys, "was ankle deep in slush," and he -went on to quote from the report of one of his colleagues:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Onward to no sound, save the splashing made -by the tall workmen [who drew the trolleys] -tramping through the mud and the drip, drip, -drip of the water upon the hood above our -heads, we are dragged and pushed ... under -the bed of the Channel.... Sometimes, in the fitful -flashes of light, the eye rests on falling red -rivulets, like streams of blood, flowing down the -damp walls. So we go on until the electric lamps -cease altogether, and the long, awful cave is enveloped -in a darkness that would be impenetrable -but for the glimmer of a few tallow candles -stuck into the bare walls of the cutting.</p></blockquote> - -<p>At the end of the tunnel the action of the boring machine -was briefly demonstrated, this time by special permission of -the Board of Trade, and then the party was escorted out of -the tunnel and taken to a good lunch, presumably at the Lord -Warden Hotel. Another engraving in the same issue of <cite>The -Graphic</cite> shows members of the same party of officers, chairs -drawn slightly back, sitting about a luncheon table. The -monocled guests, ranged on each side of a clutter of bottles, -potted ferns, place cards, and an interesting variety of -glasses—including, as one can see fairly clearly, champagne - -<span class="pagenum">[88]</span> - -glasses, claret glasses, and hock glasses—are being addressed -by a bearded speaker. They look dazed. Yet while using his -best softening-up techniques on the Army officers, Sir Edward -did not let up his fire on his principal opponents among the -military. Thus, during 1884, when he reintroduced his Tunnel -Bill on the floor in Parliament (it was rejected by 222 -votes to 84) he ridiculed the anti-tunnel generals for publicly -confessing an inability to cope with defending a frontier "no -bigger than the door of the House of Commons." Dealing -with the question of British insularity, he also introduced the -argument that since France and England had once been -united as part of the same continental land mass his opponents, -in refusing to unite them again, were openly showing -distrust of the wisdom of Providence in having created the -connection in the first place. This last assertion really incensed -the editors of the London <cite>Times</cite>, who had been steadily -invoking Providence as their ally against the tunnel all -along. The <cite>Times</cite> ran an editorial declaring angrily that no -stronger reason could be found for distrusting the whole tunnel -scheme than the fact that Sir Edward had been reduced to -using such an argument. The <cite>Times</cite> added, severely, "Ordinary -people will probably be content to take the world as it -appears in historic times. Everything that we possess and are—our -character, our language, our freedom, our institutions, -our religion, our unviolated hearths, and our far-extended -Empire—we owe to the encircling sea; and when Englishmen -try to penetrate the designs of Providence they will not seek -them in geological speculations, but will rather thank Him -Who 'isled us here.'"</p> - -<p>Sir Edward, in his indomitable fashion, not only pursued -his geological speculations but also kept pursuing the tunnel -question in Parliament. In 1887, a year in which he changed -the name of the Submarine Continental Railway Company to -that of the Channel Tunnel Company (he had taken over the - -<span class="pagenum">[89]</span> - -long-moribund rival company in 1886), he went on such a -powerful campaign on behalf of a new Channel Tunnel Bill -that it was defeated in the House by only seventy-six votes. -In 1888, he tried again, and even managed to persuade Mr. -Gladstone, now the leader of the Opposition, that the Channel -could be tunneled under with propriety. As a result, Mr. -Gladstone, in June 1888, gave his personal support to Sir -Edward's Tunnel Bill and delivered a long Parliamentary -speech on the subject. In this dissertation the venerable -statesman, while taking nothing back about the wisdom of -Providence in placing the Channel where it was, said he had -now come to feel that a Channel tunnel could be used "without -altering in any way our insular character or insular security, -to give us some of the innocent and pacific advantages -of a land frontier." But even Mr. Gladstone's support -couldn't swing it. Parliament would not agree to the tunnel. -At last, after all these setbacks, Sir Edward had to consider -the tunnel project as a lost cause, if only temporarily. He -stopped promoting it in 1894, having become involved in the -meantime in a couple of alternate projects—a railway tunnel -between Scotland and Ireland and a ship canal in Ireland -between Dublin and Galway. Also, in 1889, he had become -chairman of a company to erect at Wembley Park, near London, -a great iron tower, modeled on the Eiffel Tower, which -was to be known as the Watkin Tower. The Watkin Tower -didn't get very high. Only a single stage was completed, and -this was opened to the public in 1896; it was demolished -eleven years later. Sir Edward Watkin died at Northenden, -Cheshire, in 1901.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum">[90]</span></p> - -<h2> -<img src="images/i_chapter_5_header.png" alt="Five" /> -<br />Five -</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="xxxlarge">T</span><span class="smcap">he advent</span> -of the Entente Cordiale in 1904 provided the -basis for the next attempt to revive the tunnel scheme. In -1907, the English Channel Tunnel Company, by now under -the chairmanship of Baron Frederic Emile d'Erlanger, a -banker, made another attempt to obtain Parliamentary approval -for a tunnel. This time, the company had the advantage -of bringing to bear on its behalf solid engineering studies -and twentieth-century technology. The trains in the tunnel -were now to be all electric, and the difficult task of evacuating -the spoil from the tunnel during its construction was to be -carried out by an ingenious new method, invented by a -Frenchman named Philippe Fougerolles, of pulverizing it and -mixing it with sea water into a soft slurry, then pumping the -slurry out of the tunnel through pipelines. This time, while -all the old arguments for and against the tunnel were being -rehashed in Parliament, the tunnel promoters came up with a -novel proposal designed to demonstrate the benign intentions -toward England of the French Government and to allay the -suspicions of the anti-tunnel faction in England. They suggested -that the French end of the tunnel emerge from the side -of a steep cliff on the shore of the Channel at Wissant, not far - -<span class="pagenum">[91]</span> - -from Sangatte. The sole access to the tunnel entrance on the -French side then would be made through a long horseshoe-shaped -railway viaduct extending for some distance out over -the sea and doubling back again to join, a mile or so away -from the tunnel entrance, the French coastal rail line. Thus, -the French suggested, the British fleet would be at liberty to -sail up and array itself at any point offshore in a time of -national emergency and at its convenience to shell the viaduct -and tunnel entrance to smithereens. Expounding on the advantages -of this plan in the pages of the <cite>Revue Politique et -Parlementaire</cite>, one of the two principal architects of the 1907 -tunnel plan, Albert Sartiaux—the other was the engineer, Sir -Francis Fox—encouragingly pointed out that such a viaduct -not only would constitute the most perfect target imaginable -for the guns of the Royal Navy, but also "would be a magnificent -<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">point de vue</i> for tourists." These inducements were -insufficient, however. Parliament turned down the tunnel -again. And a Labor M.P. declared, "If the Channel were tunneled, -the Army and Navy estimates would speedily grow -beyond the control of the most resolutely prudent financier. -Old-age pensions would dwindle out of sight, and a shilling -income tax would soon be regarded as the distant dream of an -Arcadian past."</p> - -<p>Just before the First World War, the Channel Tunnel -Company, headed by Baron Frederic Emile d'Erlanger's son, -Baron Emile Beaumont d'Erlanger, embarked on another -crusade. In 1913, a deputation representing ninety M.P.s -favorable to the tunnel scheme visited Herbert Asquith, the -Prime Minister, to ask for the Government's approval for the -scheme, and the Liberal London <cite>Daily Chronicle</cite>, editorially -proclaiming that the advent of the airplane had put an end to -England's position as an island, came through with a big pro-tunnel -press campaign. However, the <cite>Times</cite> of London continued -to stick firmly to its ancient position, and it ran an - -<span class="pagenum">[92]</span> - -editorial restating its old arguments against the tunnel and -ingeniously adding a new one—that even if there were no -real possibility of invasion, the very existence of the tunnel -"might even itself lead to a precipitation of war, if in case of -international complications it was considered necessary, in a -possible moment of confusion, to close the tunnel at the Dover -end." In July 1914, less than a fortnight before the outbreak -of war, the Committee of Imperial Defense turned the tunnel -scheme down again. But the value of a Channel tunnel as a -supply route for the Allied armies on the Continent continued -to be debated throughout the war, and when it was over -Marshal Foch declared publicly that "If the English and the -French had had a tunnel under the Channel in 1914, the war -would have been shortened by at least two years." The Marshal -was promptly made the honorary president of the Comité -Français du Tunnel.</p> - -<p>In postwar England, the tunnel project began to obtain -heavy support in Parliament. By 1924, some four hundred -M.P.s—about two-thirds of the House—were said to be for -it, and the new Labor Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, -promised a careful and sympathetic review of the Government's -position on the tunnel. He called all of the four living -former Prime Ministers—Lord Balfour, Herbert Asquith, -Lloyd George, and Stanley Baldwin—into consultation on -the matter, as well as the Committee of Imperial Defense. The -Prime Ministers met for forty minutes and rejected the -scheme again, and MacDonald told Parliament that the Government -felt postwar military developments had "tended, -without exception, to render the Channel tunnel a more dangerous -experiment" than ever. Winston Churchill protested -the decision. "I do not hesitate to say that it was wrong," he -told the House.</p> - -<p>In 1929, everybody had a go at the tunnel once more, and -very elaborate engineering studies were made on the subject - -<span class="pagenum">[93]</span> - -by well-established engineering firms and were carefully examined -by a special Government committee, with particular -attention being given to the contention of pro-tunnel people -that the construction of a Channel tunnel would provide badly -needed work for Englishmen in depression times. The report -of the Government's committee was, with a single dissension, -favorable to the construction of the tunnel. But the Committee -of Imperial Defense still was to have its say, and in May -1930 it rejected the project. This time the rejection was -made primarily on two grounds, according to a high British -military man who was later a member of that body. The first -of these, he says, was the fear of the military that the successful -construction of a Channel tunnel would so adversely -affect England's Channel shipping trade that the Channel -ports were likely to fall into ill repair and the harbors to -start silting up—dangerous conditions in periods of national -emergency; the second was their fear that if Britain became -involved in another war on the Continent, the tunnel would -suddenly become a traffic bottleneck through which it would -be difficult to move war supplies and equipment quickly and -on the massive scale required. A month after this adverse verdict -by the military, a motion was nonetheless put forward in -the House of Commons for approval of the tunnel, and this -time such a large group of M.P.s was favorable to the scheme -that the motion failed to carry by only seven votes.</p> - -<p>For most of the thirties, the tunnel project just drifted -along in a dormant state. Once every so often, when things -were generally slack, the press would carry a feature story -on it, and the annual meetings of the Channel Tunnel Company, -still gamely presided over by Baron Emile Beaumont -d'Erlanger, were always good for a paragraph tucked somewhere -into the financial pages under mildly mocking headlines, -such as "Hope Eternal," "The Channel Tunnel Again," -or, in one of the popular dailies, just "The Poor Old Tunnel."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[94]</span></p> - -<p>The outbreak of the Second World War, however, far from -putting the Channel tunnel completely out of sight, revived -the issue, for a time, anyway. In November 1939 the French -Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution calling for the construction -of a tunnel; early in 1940, Prime Minister Neville -Chamberlain—the son, incidentally, of Joseph Chamberlain, -who as president of the Board of Trade had ordered the tunnel -workings stopped back in the eighties—turned the tunnel -project down again in a parliamentary reply. The retreat -from Dunkirk gave pro-tunnel and anti-tunnel people the -opportunity of putting forth their arguments about the tunnel -once more, with some variations—with the pro-tunnelers -claiming that a Channel tunnel might have enabled the British -Expeditionary Force to keep a bridgehead in France, and the -anti-tunnelers countering that the same tunnel would have -given German paratroopers the opportunity of seizing the -English end and using it as a bridgehead for the invasion of -England.</p> - -<p>Then, after the fall of France, when the Germans were -busily making preparations for the invasion of England, the -question arose among the British military as to whether the -enemy might not just possibly attempt to reach England by -surreptitiously tunneling underneath the Channel. As a consequence, -the War Office called in an eminent British civil -engineer, the late Sir William Halcrow, and asked him to -make a study of the question of whether the Germans could -pull off such a feat. "We examined the situation quite carefully -and concluded that, provided we kept reasonably alert, -the Germans could not dig the tunnel without being detected," -an engineering colleague of Sir William Halcrow's on the -survey said a while ago. He added, "Their difficulty would lie -in the disposal of the spoil. They couldn't get rid of it without -our seeing from the air that something peculiar was going -on. If they tried to dump the spoil into the sea at night it - -<span class="pagenum">[95]</span> - -would have to be done at the turn of the tide, and the chalk -would leave a cloud in the sea that would not be dissipated by -daylight. If they pulverized the spoil, converted it into a -slurry, and pumped it well out to sea, we would be able to spot -the chalk cloud too, and even if they tried other means of dispersing -the spoil the very process of dispersal would call for -such extensive installations that we would soon be on to -them."</p> - -<p>In 1942, somebody at the War Office had another look -into the tunnel situation, this time for the purpose of finding -out if it would be practical for the British to start tunneling -under the Channel—the idea presumably being the creation -of a supply route to France ahead of an Allied invasion, -with the last leg of the route being completed once the Allied -Armies had installed themselves on the French coast. Again, -several prominent British civil engineers were called into -consultation, but the subject was abruptly dropped, without -investigation of the problem of disposing of the spoil, when -the engineers estimated that a tunnel probably would take -eight years to complete—three years longer than the war -then was expected to last.</p> - -<p>From 1940 on, the British kept a routine watch on their -reconnaissance photographs for signs of tunneling on the -French side, especially around the site of the still existing -shaft of the French Tunnel Company at Sangatte. Early -in 1944, R.A.F. and U.S.A.F. reconnaissance showed signs -of unusual installations being made near Sangatte, but these -later turned out to be unconnected with subterranean workings. -As it happened, they were launching sites for V-2 -bombs.</p> - -<p>The actual handling by the Germans of the old tunnel shaft -during the occupation of France was rather peculiar. Far -from trying to continue the existing tunnel in the early part -of the Occupation, they treated it in contemptuous fashion, - -<span class="pagenum">96</span> - -using the shaft as a dump for old chunks of machinery, used -shell casings, bits of rubbish, and broken slabs of concrete. -Later on, their attitude changed drastically. They sealed the -top of the shaft with a poured-concrete platform. Then, in -weirdly romantic fashion, they built a large rim of fitted -stone around the platform to create an ornamental-wall effect, -and added around the well a grass-and-flagstone terrace -complete with formal walks and sets of monumental-looking -stone steps laid out in symmetrical style. Apparently their -notion was to bring the tunnel aesthetically into harmony -with a military cemetery they installed between the tunnel -entrance and the sea.</p> - -<p>After the war, the Channel-tunnel project continued to -languish in prewar fashion. If anything, even less than before -was heard in the press about the activities of the Channel -Tunnel Company. The company's headquarters at the Southern -Railway offices at London Bridge were blown up in the -blitz, and all the company's records were destroyed. For -some time, while attempts were made to piece together duplicate -lists from Government files, the Channel Tunnel Company -didn't even know who the majority of its stockholders were, -but that didn't matter too much, considering the circumstances. -Baron Emile Beaumont d'Erlanger, the chairman, -had died in 1939, and his place on the Board was taken by his -nephew, Leo d'Erlanger, also a banker. Leo d'Erlanger, now -a spry, elegant, silver-haired gentleman in his sixties, brightly -confesses to having had little interest in the tunnel until -about twelve years ago. "I was brought up in a home where -the Channel tunnel was a family religion, and, to tell the -truth, I didn't give it too much thought," he says. "My -grandfather used to talk about it when I came back for the -holidays from Eton. 'Politics,' they all used to say. 'The only -reason why the tunnel isn't built is politics.' I never paid -much attention. I thought it was an old dodo and never had - -<span class="pagenum">[97]</span> - -anything to do with it in my Uncle Emile's lifetime. When he -died and I took over, I used to look forward with dread to -the annual general meetings. I had nothing to say. I considered -the whole thing moribund. For a few years we met, I -remember, at the Charing Cross Hotel, which belonged to the -Southern Railway [a successor to Sir Edward Watkin's -South-Eastern Railway], and the secretary was an elderly -retired man by the name of Cramp, who once had something -to do with the Southern Railway, I think. We used to have -difficulty in getting a quorum. I suppose we would manage to -get four or five people to turn up."</p> - -<p>However, the lost-cause atmosphere began to undergo a -change in 1948, when Sir Herbert Walker, the former general -manager of the Southern Railway, which was taken over -by British Railways in the nationalization program of that -year, acted temporarily as chairman of the Channel Tunnel -Company. Walker came to believe that the Channel-tunnel -scheme could be a practical one in the postwar era, and he -brought it to life again. Largely as a result of his persuasions, -a Parliamentary study group began to look into the -tunnel question once more, and the Channel Tunnel Company's -lobbyists once more set about building up pro-tunnel -opinion among M.P.s. It was just like old times for the pro-tunnelers, -but with one significant difference. By the mid-fifties, -it became clear that in the emerging age of rockets -bearing nuclear warheads the traditional strategic arguments -of the British military against the construction of a Channel -tunnel would no longer have the same force that they had -once had. And as for the old fears of military conscription in -peacetime and high taxes, they had long ago been realized -without a tunnel. It was therefore an event to make the -hearts of all pro-tunnelers beat fast when, one day in February -1955, in the House of Commons, Harold Macmillan, then -Minister of Defense, in answer to a parliamentary question - -<span class="pagenum">[98]</span> - -as to whether the Government would have objections of a -military nature to raise against a Channel tunnel, replied, -"Scarcely at all."</p> - -<p>This seemed like a green light to D'Erlanger, but for a -while he couldn't quite decide what to do after seeing it flash -on. Early in 1956, however, he went to see Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, -who was a director of the French Tunnel Company—the -Société Concessionnaire du Chemin de Fer Sous-marin entre -la France et l'Angleterre—and the grandson of Michel Chevalier, -who had founded the company in 1875. D'Erlanger -suggested that, since the tunnel was a common ancestral interest, -the two of them have another try at promoting it. -Leroy-Beaulieu agreed, and he suggested that as the Suez -Canal Company's concession in Egypt was due to run out in -1968, and might not be renewed, the Suez Company might -possibly be interested in turning to a Channel tunnel as its -next project. Sure enough, the principals of the Suez Company, -whose headquarters were in Paris, were interested in -the idea, but the sudden seizure of the Canal by Colonel Nasser -in July of that year kept them too distracted to pursue -the tunnel project just then. In the meantime, quite independently -of these tunnel developments in Paris and London, two -young international lawyers in New York, Frank Davidson -and Cyril Means, Jr., became intrigued by the possibility of -a tunnel between England and France. Davidson and Means -happened to have good connections in Wall Street, and after -they established contact with the two existing tunnel companies -by letter, Means went over to London and Paris early in -February of 1957 to investigate the tunnel situation and to -offer the tunnel people there—and the Suez Canal Company—the -chance of obtaining some substantial American financial -backing for the construction of a tunnel if it proved to -be a practical proposition. The tunnel people in Europe -showed varying degrees of interest in the proposal, and to - -<span class="pagenum">[99]</span> - -strengthen their position, Davidson and Means, with another -friend, an engineer, Arnaud de Vitry d'Avancourt, formed a -New York corporation called Technical Studies, Inc., with -the announced purpose of financing technical investigations -and promoting the construction of a Channel tunnel.</p> - -<p>In April 1957, the Suez Canal Company, which by then -had given up any hope of regaining control of the Canal, -jumped into the tunnel picture by announcing that it intended -to collaborate with the English and French tunnel -companies to have made a very detailed geological survey of -the Channel bed to determine the practicability of a tunnel. -The tunnel came into the news again. When, at the seventy-sixth -annual meeting of the Channel Tunnel Company, in -London, D'Erlanger got up to confirm the latest development, -he did so not before the usual handful of disillusioned -shareholders, but in a room packed with people who had suddenly -rediscovered and dusted off old Channel Tunnel Company -stock certificates. A correspondent from the <cite>Times</cite> of -London who was present reported of the stockholders' reaction -to the speech of the company's chairman on the possibilities -of seriously reviving the tunnel project that it took -only a few minutes "to excite their minds to a pleasurable -pitch" and that "at least one member of Mr. d'Erlanger's -audience darted out in the middle of his speech to instruct -his broker to buy in shares." According to the <cite>Times</cite>, the -only note of doubt was struck by a stockholder at the end of -the meeting, which lasted half an hour:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Mr. John Elliott, who bought his shares for -a song almost, asked where the company's workings -were. Did they really exist? He had visited -Dover, and neither police, shopkeepers, nor -the county surveyor could tell him where they -were. He suggested that the board prove their - -<span class="pagenum">[100]</span> - -existence by escorting a nominated half-dozen -shareholders on an eye-witness excursion.</p></blockquote> - -<p>Little attention was paid to the objector. The <cite>Times</cite> reported -that "other shareholders pooh-poohed his scepticism," -and the meeting broke up. It was a far cry from the days of -Sir Edward Watkin's special trains to Dover for tunnel parties. -However, the price of Channel Tunnel Company stock, -which had been available for years on the London Stock Exchange -for as low as sixpence, rose to more than ten shillings -by the day of the meeting and shortly thereafter rose rapidly, -until by May 20 it reached twenty-six shillings and -ninepence—six shillings and ninepence more than the price of -the first Channel Tunnel Company stock in 1876.</p> - -<p>The British press, on the whole, reacted to the latest tunnel -development in tolerant fashion. There was, however, a -spirited discussion of the subject in an article in the <cite>Daily -Telegraph</cite> in the spring of 1957, marked by an attack on the -whole scheme by Major-General Sir Edward Spears. General -Spears wrote that although powerful interests now appeared -to be backing the construction of a Channel tunnel, the objections -raised to the project in the past were as valid as -ever. "Such a tunnel would bind this island to the Continent -irrevocably [and] would soon link our fate to that of our -Continental neighbors," he asserted, and he added that if the -new scheme were persisted in, steps should be taken to enlighten -the public before the Government was committed to -approving it. General Spears's position was supported by -Lord Montgomery. Choosing Trafalgar Day as the most appropriate -time to express himself on the subject, Lord Montgomery -said at a Navy League luncheon in October of 1957, -"There is talk these days of a Channel tunnel. Strategically -it would weaken us. Why give up one of our greatest assets—our -island home—and make things easier for our enemies? - -<span class="pagenum">[101]</span> - -The Channel tunnel is a wildcat scheme and I am wholeheartedly -opposed to it.... I hope that the Navy League will -have nothing to do with it."</p> - -<p>However, by Trafalgar Day the pro-tunnelers were hard -at it, too. In July 1957, the four main interests involved in -the scheme—the English and French Channel-tunnel companies, -the Suez Canal Company and Technical Studies—had -combined to create an organization called the Channel Tunnel -Study Group to contract for modern technical surveys of -the whole tunnel question. The new group is said to have -spent over a million dollars on having these surveys made. -The studies included a very detailed survey of the Channel -bed with modern electronic geophysical equipment and deep -rock borings and sea-bottom samples made across the neck of -the Channel, as well as microscopic examination of these rock -samples to determine their microfossil composition and probable -position in the strata from which they were taken. Curiously -enough, while the geological survey was under way, -somebody on the project took the trouble to inquire into the -old French hydrographic surveys for a Channel tunnel, and -after some diligent searching he turned up, in a dusty waiting -room of a disused Paris suburban railroad station, where it -had been stored for an age, a collection of thousands of the -sea-bottom samples made in the French Channel-tunnel surveys -of 1875 and 1876. All of the samples were found neatly -packed away in test tubes and ticketed, and the searchers -even uncovered a case of the geological specimens that Thomé -de Gamond himself had recovered in 1855 by his naked -plunges to the bottom of the Channel in the neighborhood of -the Varne. The geologists weren't interested in going by way -of the Varne any more, but many of the old 1875-76 samples -were taken away for microfossil examination as part of a -check on how the results of the old surveys compared with -the new. Except for some variations relating to the extent of - -<span class="pagenum">[102]</span> - -the cretaceous outcrop in the middle of the Channel, the findings -tallied nicely.</p> - -<p>The new Study Group had a number of other elaborate -surveys made, too, on the economic and engineering problems -involved in the creation and operation of a Channel tunnel or -an equivalent means of cross-Channel transport. Besides developing -plans for a bored tunnel—the projected double-rail -tunnel, interconnected at intervals by cross-passages, is essentially -a modern version of William Low's plan of the 1860s, -with an extra small service tunnel being added between the -main tunnels—the Study Group's engineering consultants developed -in detail schemes for a Channel bridge, an immersed -railway tube, an immersed road tube, a combined immersed -tube with two railway tracks, and a four-way road system on -two levels. The bridge proposed would be an enormous affair -with approximately 142 piers and with four main spans in -the center of the Strait each 984 feet long. These spans would -tower a maximum of 262½ feet above sea level to allow the -largest ships in the world to pass underneath with plenty of -room to spare. The bridge would take no longer to build than -a road tunnel, but it would cost about twice as much, and in -addition it would be expensive and difficult to maintain and -would present a hazard to navigation. The immersed tube proposed -for either rail or road traffic (but not both) probably -would cost about the same as a bored tunnel and might be -constructed in four years. A combined road-rail tube would -take about the same time to build, but would be more expensive -even than a bridge. Among the best-known schemes for a -combined tube is that of a Frenchman, André Basdevant, -who has proposed one with a four-lane highway and a two-track -rail line. This scheme would pretty much run along the -old Cap Gris-Nez-Folkestone route of Thomé de Gamond, -and it would even have, like most of Thomé de Gamond's -schemes, an artificial island in mid-channel on the Varne. As - -<span class="pagenum">[103]</span> - -for the latest scheme for a laid, rather than a bored, tube, it -would be no different from Thomé de Gamond's plan in 1834 -for a submerged tube, and as in that old plan a trench would -be dug, by operations conducted at the surface, across the -Channel bottom to receive the tube, which would be prefabricated -in sections and towed out to sea to be laid down in the -trench a section at a time. This time the digging of the trench -would be carried out from a huge above-surface working platform, -something like an aircraft-carrier deck on sets of two-hundred-foot-high -stilts, that would jack itself up and move -on across the Channel as the work progressed. From these -and other surveys, the Study Group concluded by March -1960 that the best means of linking Britain and France -would be by a rail tunnel, either bored or immersed, which, -while avoiding the difficult ventilation problems of a long road -tunnel, would make for convenient transport of cars and -trucks by a piggyback system. It further proposed that the -tunnel be operated jointly by the British and French Government-run -railways under a long lease from an international -company yet to be formed, and that only the bare tunnel itself -be privately financed, with the British and French state-run -railways providing the installations, terminals, and rolling -stock at a cost of some twenty million pounds.</p> - -<p>When D'Erlanger announced the Study Group's proposals, -calling all the latest tunnel laborings "a last glorious effort -to get this through," the British press received the news with -big headlines on the front pages but with considerable indignation -on its editorial pages. The core of the objections was -not of a military nature but had to do with the number of -financial concessions that the tunnel people were asking from -the British and French Governments (that is, taxpayers) as -a basis for going ahead with the scheme. The general attitude -of the press was that the British Government should have -nothing to do with some of the financial concessions asked. - -<span class="pagenum">[104]</span> - -There were a good many references, all very familiar to a -reader of the press attacks during the tunnel uproar back in -the eighties, to "promoters," and the tone of editorial reaction -was fairly well typified by a sarcastic article in <cite>The Economist</cite> -entitled "Pie Under the Sea." And the <cite>Times</cite> ran an editorial -declaring snappily that, as the proposals stood, "the -light at the end of the tunnel would be either bright gold for -the private owners of the £20 million of equity capital or -Bright Red for the Anglo-French taxpayer." Then, shortly -afterward, the tunnel came under public attack by Eoin C. -Mekie, chairman of Silver City Airways, which in the years -since the Second World War has ferried more than three -hundred thousand cars and a million and a half passengers -by air to and from the Continent. Mekie denounced the tunnel -scheme as "commercial folly" and described it as "a feat -of engineering which is already made obsolete by the speed of -modern technical advances." Other attacks were made, too, -from the enthusiasts over the future of Hovercraft, the heavier-than-air -craft, still in the experimental stage, which ride -on a cushion of air; and from, not unexpectedly, Channel -shipping and ferry interests. Then Viscount Montgomery, in -a newspaper interview, returned to the attack on the tunnel -on the ground of its undermining what he called "our island -strategy." He also observed in particular, when asked about -the feasibility of blowing the tunnel up in case of war or -threatened war, "The lessons of history show that things that -ought to be blown up never are, as Guy Fawkes discovered." -And Major-General Spears in the spring of 1960 gave fuller -vent to his anti-tunnel views in a pamphlet that he wrote and -had circulated privately. Its general tenor was set by General -Spears's assertion that "the Channel saved us in 1940 and -may well save us again," and that "The British people need -no tunnels." And he asked, "Who would have believed that -in the last war the Germans would not have destroyed the - -<span class="pagenum">[105]</span> - -enormously important bridge over the Rhine at Remagen? -But they failed to do so."</p> - -<p>To all such criticism as this, the Channel-tunnel people reacted -not with the kind of broadsides that Sir Edward Watkin -would have let loose in the heyday of the Channel-tunnel -controversy but by hiring a public-relations outfit headed by -a man called E. D. O'Brien, a former publicity director for -the Conservative party, who is said to be known among his -colleagues as Champagne Toby. O'Brien's champagne appears -to be weaker stuff than Sir Edward Watkin's; the pro-tunnel -publicity his outfit puts out seems to consist of things -like a small booklet called "Channel Tunnel, the Facts," -which an O'Brien assistant has described as "a sort of child's -guide, in Q. and A. form, you know, about the tunnel."</p> - -<p>As soon as the British press fell on the promoters for -making the demands they did for Government financial guarantees, -the promoters came up with a set of counter-proposals. -They offered to finance not only the tunnel itself -but also the terminals and approaches on both sides; they -further proposed leasing the tunnel directly to the two governments, -thus avoiding the earlier requirement of governmental -guarantee of the bonds.</p> - -<p>When the subject of constructing a Channel tunnel will -come up for a decision one way or the other before the British -Cabinet and Parliament again nobody seems willing to -predict, and what the Cabinet will decide nobody seems willing -to predict, either. However, D'Erlanger, who says that -he would consider another tunnel thumbs down by the British -Government or Parliament "a negation of progress," is -always happy to talk about the benefits a Channel tunnel -would confer upon Europe. "You have fifty million people on -this side of the Channel and two hundred million plus on the -Continental side. If you join them by a small hyphen, I think -it <em>must</em> facilitate trade on both sides," he says. "I like to - -<span class="pagenum">[106]</span> - -think of the tunnel as a kind of engagement ring that would -bind Britain's Outer Seven into a workable marriage with -the six countries of the Common Market. Think of shipping -goods from Rome to Birmingham or from Edinburgh to -Bordeaux without breaking bulk, and at half the cost! It's -high time Europe had a manifestation of progress along the -lines of the St. Lawrence Seaway, and I think a Channel -tunnel would be the great civil-engineering feat of the century -for Europe."</p> - -<p>In the meantime, with all the brave words, and all the -money poured into the project, the Channel Tunnel Company -still has something of a phantom air about it. It doesn't have -a regular staff—D'Erlanger is a busy City banker—and it -has no real office of its own. D'Erlanger's banking headquarters -are at the investment house of which he is a partner, -Philip Hill, Higginson, Erlangers, Ltd., along Moorgate, but -no Channel Tunnel Company records are kept there. The nearest -thing to a headquarters for the Channel Tunnel Company -is a set of Victorian offices on Broad Street Place, in the City, -occupied by a firm of "secretaries" called W. H. Stentiford & -Co. These offices are reached by a very ancient and slow ironwork-gate -lift, and a sign in the corridor shows that W. H. -Stentiford & Co. is the representative of an astonishing variety -of companies, including the Channel Tunnel Company, -Ltd., and a number of outfits with such exotic corporate -names as the Tea Share Trust, Ltd., Uruwira Minerals, Ltd., -Dominion Keep (Klerksdorp, Ltd.), and Klerksdorp Consolidated -Goldfields, Ltd. Inside, amid a clutter of ticking clocks, -great ledgers, old safes emblazoned with peeling coats of -arms, great piles of papers, and trays of teacups, a small -staff of round-shouldered retainers toils away vicariously -over the affairs of these far-flung organizations—making up -accounts and annual or quarterly statements, filling out and -recording stock certificates, answering letters, and so on. All - -<span class="pagenum">[107]</span> - -this clerkly activity is presided over by an eminently respectable -and precisely mannered man by the name of P. S. Elliston, -who also arranges board meetings for his many client -companies in a room set aside at Stentiford's for the purpose. -Mr. Elliston's organization "took on" the Channel Tunnel -Company in the early forties, and all its annual meetings -since 1947 have been held at Stentiford's, with Mr. Elliston -present in his capacity of representative of his firm of secretaries. -Mr. Elliston finds things changed a bit from the time -when the Channel Tunnel Company first became one of his -firm's clients. In those old days, he says, the whole annual -meeting could generally be disposed of in between five and ten -minutes, with only a couple of directors being present—Mr. -Elliston having thoughtfully bought one share of Channel -Tunnel Company stock to enable himself to vote in case no -other shareholder besides a couple of directors could be persuaded -to turn up to make a quorum of three. Now, he says, it -may sometimes take twenty-five minutes or even as long as -forty-five minutes to transact necessary business. As for -Channel Tunnel Company stock, it has fluctuated all the way -from sixpence to fifty shillings—its price one day in 1959 at -a time when the company's balance sheet showed a cash balance -of just £161. The price of the stock at the time this -book was written was about twenty-two shillings, and the -company's cash in hand (in 1961 it issued a little more stock -to keep going) was £91,351 "and a few shillings." Owing to -the wartime destruction of its records and the difficulty of -tracking down all the old transactions, the Channel Tunnel -Company still doesn't know who all its stockholders are, and, -conversely, there are quite a few people scattered about who -probably aren't aware that they are company stockholders.</p> - -<p>Mr. Elliston describes the last fifteen years or so of the -company's history as containing "several periods where there -was very keen interest" in the tunnel scheme, especially in - -<span class="pagenum">[108]</span> - -1957 and 1958, with Stentiford's being subjected, he says, to -"a persistent spate of enquiries," including calls from newspaper -reporters and letters from schoolboys asking why the -tunnel was never built.</p> - -<p>Some time ago, when I was in England, I decided to take a -trip down to the coast between Folkestone and Dover to the -scene of the violent tunnel controversy of the eighties. I had -heard that the shaft of the old Shakespeare Cliff gallery in -which Sir Edward Watkin did so much of his promoting and -entertaining, as well as tunneling, had been sealed off many -years ago, but I was aware that the Abbots Cliff gallery, or -part of it, still existed. Through the good offices of Leo -d'Erlanger and Harold J. B. Harding, the vice-president of -the Institution of Civil Engineers, who has directed many of -the latest technical surveys on the proposed Channel tunnel, -I arranged to go down one day from London to Folkestone -and to be taken into the old Abbots Cliff tunnel. Written permission -had to be obtained from the Government for the visit, -and the necessary arrangements had to be made well in advance -with officials of British Railways, the present owner, -representing the Crown, of the coastal lands once the domain -of Sir Edward Watkin's South-Eastern Railway Company. -Harding explained to me that since the tunnel entrance was -kept locked up and lay in a not readily accessible part of the -cliffs facing the sea, it would be practical for me to make the -visit only under fairly good weather conditions, and then -under the escort of people equipped with lamps and the -means of opening up the tunnel entrance. "You may get a bit -wet and a bit dirty, so don't wear a good suit," Harding -added, and he went on to say that he had seen to it that I -would be shown around the tunnel by a civil engineer named -Kenneth W. Adams, from the district office of British Railways -at Ashford, Kent—Adams being, in Harding's words, - -<span class="pagenum">[109]</span> - -"a keen engineer who has become something of a hobbyist on -the old tunnel workings."</p> - -<p>Wearing an old suit, I duly took a train early one fair -morning in autumn, from Charing Cross, and when I got off -at Folkestone Central Station, Adams, a stocky, cheerful -man who seemed to be about forty, was waiting for me. He -had a little car waiting outside the station, and when he got -into it, he introduced me to an assistant sitting in the driver's -seat named Jack Burgess. "Jack's grandfather was a surface -worker at the tunnel workings at Shakespeare Cliff," Adams -said as Burgess started the car up. "Jack was just telling me -that he remembers his grandfather telling him, when he was a -boy, about Lord Palmerston coming down to visit the tunnel -in 1881. The old chap remembered that the food that was -brought into the tunnel for parties of visitors from the Lord -Warden Hotel at Dover came in hay boxes—that is, in big -wicker boxes interlined with a thick layer of hay to keep the -food warm."</p> - -<p>Burgess drove us through the outer part of Folkestone toward -the sea at a pretty good clip, with the little car buzzing -away like a high-speed sewing machine, and in a very little -time, after climbing up a long, gentle slope by the back of the -cliffs, we drew up on the heights of East Cliff, a kind of -promontory within Eastwear Bay, which lies to the north-east -of Folkestone Harbor. There, in two broad curves to the left -and right of us, the precipitous face of the white chalk cliffs -gleamed, like huge ruined walls with grassed-over rubble piled -about their base, in hazy sunlight. Far below us, and stretching -away into the haze, lay the Channel, gray and, for the -time being, pretty calm. A hundred feet or so from where our -car stopped was a massive round stone tower, its sides tapering -in toward the top like a child's sand castle; two similar -towers lay some distance from us in the direction of Folkestone. -These, Adams explained, were Martello towers, formerly - -<span class="pagenum">[110]</span> - -cannon-bearing fortifications that were installed in -prominent places all along the Dover-Folkestone coastal area -during the invasion scares early in the nineteenth century to -repel surprise landings by the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte. -(The three Martello towers comprised the main artillery defenses -of Folkestone Harbor even as late in the century as -the time of the great tunnel controversy in the eighties.) -Then he pointed to the cliffs stretching to the north-east. "You -see that large white building on top of the cliff almost at the -very end of the bay? That's Abbots Cliff, and the tunnel is -at the base of it," he said. "We'll take you down that way in -a couple of minutes, but first I'd like to show you something -that may interest you."</p> - -<p>We walked a short distance down a path by East Cliff to a -point where we could see, as we couldn't previously, the rail -line that ran along the coast, partly through rail tunnels -piercing the cliffs, and partly over the land that rose above -their base. Then Adams pointed out to me something jutting -horizontally out of the chalk cliffs a little above and to the -side of the railroad cutting. It was a large and long-rusted -collection of wheels, gears, and cams, all compounded together -into the shape of some fantastic Dadaist engine. "What you -see there is the remains of the last machine ever tried out for -boring a Channel tunnel," Adams said. "That's the Whittaker -boring machine, an electrically driven affair, powered -by a steam-driven generator, and it was tried out here after -the First World War. Actually, it was developed by the -Royal Engineers for mining under the German lines, and in -1919 Sir Percy Tempest, who was chief engineer of the South -East & Chatham Railway—an amalgamation of the South-Eastern -Railway and the London, Chatham & Dover Railway, -which in turn, by further amalgamation with other lines, -became the Southern Railway—thought it might do for the -Channel tunnel. In 1919 he asked permission from the Board - -<span class="pagenum">[111]</span> - -of Trade to drive a new heading from the old Number Three -ventilating shaft at the eastern end of Shakespeare Cliff a -little way under the foreshore, and got it, but he changed his -mind and decided to try the machine in the chalk down here. -The Whittaker machine cut a tunnel twelve feet in diameter, -and some time between 1921 and 1924 they drove a heading -into the chalk, just at the point where it's sticking out now, -for some four hundred feet. They never quite removed the -machine from the heading when they were finished, but it was -maintained right up to the outbreak of the Second World -War, when it became derelict."</p> - -<p>Adams and I walked back to the car. As we did so, he revealed -himself as being pro-tunnel. "It's a tragic thing, this -tunnel business, I think. If the tunnel had been built forty or -fifty years ago, just think of what an asset to Europe it -would have been," he said. We packed ourselves in, and Burgess -drove us down a very rough, narrow road to the level of -the railroad line. There, by a maintenance shed, a small, thin -workman was waiting for us. He was wearing an old cloth -peaked cap, a white duffel coat, and rubber knee boots, and -by his feet he had ready-lighted Tilley lamps—similar in appearance -to miners' lamps but operated by kerosene under -pressure, like a Primus stove. Adams and Burgess jumped out -of the car, and Burgess unlocked and opened up the rear -trunk. I got out of the car, too. Then the workman, whom -Adams addressed as Jim, disappeared briefly into the shed -and came out with a pile of knee boots, which he began flinging -into the car trunk. "We'll be needing these," Adams remarked -to me. Next Jim brought out an enormous wrench, at -least two feet long, and slung that on top of the protesting -rubber boots, and then he came up with an armful of duffel -coats, which he handed around. We put them on and all of us -got into the car; the little workman wordlessly, with a wide -gaptoothed grin, squeezed into the back seat with me and settled - -<span class="pagenum">[112]</span> - -back with the two big lighted Tilley lamps on his lap. -The lamps gave off a gentle roaring sound, like subdued blowtorches, -and they gave off heat that warmed the whole back -of the car.</p> - -<p>We drove off down a narrow, steep, tortuously winding, -and very rugged road, through a kind of wilderness of concrete -rubble and piles of old heavy wooden construction -beams, toward the base of the cliffs, and when we finally got -there, we continued along the wide top of a concrete sea wall -for a considerable distance until the wall suddenly narrowed -and the car could go no farther.</p> - -<p>We all got out, and Adams, Burgess, and I took off our -shoes and put on the knee boots that Burgess got out of the -trunk; and, with Jim and Burgess leading the way and bearing -between them the glowing Tilley lamps and the giant -wrench, we continued on foot along the sea wall, now as narrow -as the sidewalk of a small city street. The chalk cliffs -towered perhaps a couple of hundred feet above us. "The -tunnel is about three-quarters of a mile ahead along the sea -wall," Adams remarked as he walked beside me, and as we -went along he explained that his primary job at British Railways -was the design of sea defenses between Folkestone and -Dover to combat erosion. "It's a good job you didn't pick a -later time in the year to visit the tunnel," he went on. "This -sea wall would hardly be negotiable on foot when the water's -rough, and in winter, with the sou'westers blowing in especially, -we have some real shockers."</p> - -<p>After another fifteen minutes or so of walking along an -area where the cliffs rose back beyond a sort of terrace -formed by old landslides—the railway line ran along this -terrace in the open—Adams told me that the tunnel entrance -was not far off. A few hundred feet farther on, we finally -reached it—a small recessed place in the grassy rubble at the -base of the cliff terrace and, set into it, a four-foot-square - -<span class="pagenum">[113]</span> - -door of rough, thick wood encased by a frame of very old and -very heavy timbers. The door was hinged with heavy gate -hinges and secured not by a padlock but by a very large -metal nut, which Jim now attacked with his great wrench.</p> - -<p>As he wrestled with it, Adams, smiling, remarked that the -entrance wasn't a very big one, considering the size of the -Channel-tunnel project. "I once brought a Canadian executive, -a rather impressive-looking fellow, down here by request, -in '57, I think it was," he recalled. "It seemed very -important to him to inspect the entrance to the tunnel. When -I took him along the sea wall and showed him this entrance, -he took a look at it and just burst out laughing. I asked him -what was up. He went on laughing, and finally he told me -why. He said he was employed by a large American oil company, -and that his company had sent him over here to spy -out the possibility of buying up land for filling stations near -the entrance to the proposed Channel tunnel. Actually, of -course, nobody knows precisely where a new tunnel would -come out on the English side, and it would be very doubtful -whether they would make use of any of the old workings."</p> - -<p>The little workman unloosened the nut, and, with various -groans and creaks, the door to the tunnel allowed itself to be -pulled and shouldered open. Then, one by one, we stooped -down and entered the tunnel through the small opening. -When my eyes adjusted themselves from the light of day to -the light of the Tilley lamps we had brought with us, I found -that we were standing in a square-timbered heading perhaps -six feet high and about the same in width. The floor, like the -roof, was timbered, and from the roof, as well as from parts -of the sides of the heading, a pale fungus growth drooped -down. The atmosphere was pretty dank. Just inside the entrance, -either hanging from big rough nails protruding from -the wooden walls or lying to one side on the floor, there was -a clutter of various objects—rusty chains, augers, lengths - -<span class="pagenum">[114]</span> - -of decaying rope, candles, and a couple of lobster pots, the -presence of which Adams explained to me. "They get washed -up from time to time, and our lads, when they find them, -put them in here for safekeeping," he said. Slowly we made -our way into the tunnel. There was room for a set of narrow-gauge -rail tracks, but most of the thin rails had been -torn up, and a number of them lay piled to our right by the -wall. On the left, untracked and abandoned, lay one of the -rail trolleys that obviously had been used for hauling out -spoil. The little rusted wheels on which it rested were of -clearly Victorian design, with spokes elaborately arranged in -curlicued fashion. "This is the access heading we're in," -Adams told me as we found our way along, heads down. "The -chalk carted out from the Beaumont boring machine was -taken through here and dumped right into the sea outside the -entrance. But this access heading wasn't the first to be built; -it was dug by hand from the direction in which we're going, -from the bottom of a vertical shaft sunk from the level of the -South-Eastern Railway line seventy-four feet up above this -concrete lining we're coming to now. As you see—" Adams -took a Tilley lamp from Burgess and flashed it on the roof -of the concrete lining—"the shaft has been closed up long -ago. Now we'll go on. This first stretch is taking us in a -northerly direction."</p> - -<p>After going a short distance, we came to another concrete -lining. This, Adams said, was to reinforce the tunnel at the -point where it passed underneath the railway line. We went -on again, this time walking on a dirt floor, and then we came -to a timbered junction, from which the tunnel branched off -again to the right in the north-east direction that was originally -intended to bring it into line with the gallery at Shakespeare -Cliff, while to the left there was a low-roofed chamber -that probably once housed a siding and a maintenance workshop -for the Beaumont boring machine. Then, walking now - -<span class="pagenum">[115]</span> - -on half-rotted planks, in the warm light of the restlessly moving -Tilley lamps, we entered the circular, unlined tunnel of -Lower Chalk—a smooth, light-gray cavern, seven feet in diameter, -that stretched far ahead to disappear into darkness. -Our footing was slippery, and a small stream of water ran -in the direction from which we had come in a rough gutter -cut in the chalk, but the tunnel at this point seemed surprisingly -dry for a hole that had lain unlined for some eighty -years, and the stream of water draining away didn't seem to -me to be really any greater than the one in the Orangeburg -pipe that drains seepage from under the cellar of my summer -house in Connecticut.</p> - -<p>We had gone only a little way along the chalk tunnel when -Adams, walking ahead of me, began flashing his light along -the wall and then stopped and motioned me to come and look -at the spot where he had focused his lamp. I did so and saw, -cut into the chalk in crude lettering, the following inscription:</p> - -<div class="center"> -THIS<br /> -TUNNEL<br /> -WAS<br /> -BUGN<br /> -IN<br /> -1880<br /> -WILLIAM SHARP -</div> - -<p>However, this was not exactly how the inscription went, for -its author, after finishing it, obviously had decided that -"<span class="smcap">BUGN</span>" didn't look right, and, being unable to erase the incision, -he had had another go at it, inscribing the second try -to one side and partly over the first, so that the intended "begun" -now came out like "<span class="smcap">BEGUBNUGN</span>." But with all the -crudeness of the inscription, the author had been careful with - -<span class="pagenum">[116]</span> - -the lettering, even to point of conscientiously incising serifs -on the "T"s and "E"s.</p> - -<p>While the light played about the inscription, I could see -clearly, on the tunnel face, the ringlike marks left by individual -revolutions of the cutting head of the Beaumont boring -machine. After a few moments we moved on again, and -eventually, after trudging over ground that became increasingly -slippery, we came to a point where some of the chalk -had given way, filling the tunnel about a quarter of the way -up with debris. Adams said that the going got a bit better -later on but that we were likely to find ourselves in water over -our knee boots if we went any farther. At that point, impressed -with the sight of all the fallen rock about and by the -realization that we were in a seven-foot hole at least a quarter -of a mile inside a huge cliff on a deserted stretch of coast, -I felt as though I had seen enough. I suddenly realized what -a smart idea Sir Edward Watkin had had in providing visitors -with that champagne lift while they were well under the -sea. So we turned back again and slowly, in silence, made our -way out of Sir Edward's first tunnel.</p> - -<p>When I stepped through the tunnel entrance into the light, -it seemed very noisy outside. Sea gulls were shrieking overhead, -and the Channel waves were roaring and heaving insistently. -I had a slight headache, and I mentioned this to -Adams. "Oh, yes, I have the same thing," he said. "Although -the air in the tunnel is remarkably fresh, considering the -length of time it's been locked up and the fact that there's -only one entrance, there isn't quite as much oxygen in it as -one might want." Jim began to lock up the entrance again, -and while he was doing so, Adams suggested that we might -see if we could spot the entrance shaft on the plateau above -us. We climbed up the cliffside, and after a while we located -it, a filled-in depression resting in a mass of bramble bushes. -We waded through the bushes and stood over the remains of - -<span class="pagenum">[117]</span> - -Number One shaft, still feeling a bit headachy. As we stood -there, we picked and ate a few blackberries still left on the -bushes from summer. "They're quite good," Adams said.</p> - -<p>After we had had some lunch in Folkestone, Adams suggested -that before I went back to London I might want to -take a look at the site of the old Number Two shaft and the -main tunnel at Shakespeare Cliff, even though the Number -Two shaft and the Number Three ventilating shaft had been -long ago closed up. I was agreeable to that, and Burgess -drove us, by way of Dover, to a point along a back road, -from which we could walk to the top of Shakespeare Cliff -from the land side. While Burgess stayed in the little car, -Adams and I set off up a long slope to the cliff head, walking -along the edge of a harrowed field, the soil of which seemed -to be riddled with the kind of large flints typical of the Upper -Chalk layer.</p> - -<p>On the way up, Adams told me what had happened to the -main tunnel and shaft after the workings were finally stopped -by the Board of Trade. "Everything stopped dead at the -tunnel workings until 1892," Adams said. "By then, Sir Edward -Watkin knew he was beaten on the Channel tunnel, so -he tried a different kind of tunneling, and the South-Eastern -Railway engineers began boring for coal a matter of a few -yards away from the tunnel shaft. They went down to 2,222 -feet with their boring, at which level they met a four-foot -seam of good-quality coal, and the company obtained authority -by an act of Parliament to mine for coal under the foreshore. -As for the Channel-tunnel shaft itself, it was abandoned -in 1902 and filled up with breeze—ashes and slag—from -the colliery, and the Number Three ventilation shaft -at the eastern end of Shakespeare Cliff was also filled with -breeze in the same year. But the colliery never paid off any -better than the tunnel project. It ran into trouble around -1907 or 1908, and then the owners decided they'd have a try - -<span class="pagenum">[118]</span> - -at getting iron ore out of the workings, and so all the mineral -mining rights were bought by the Channel Steel Company, -but the iron mining didn't prosper any more than the coal -mining. The Channel Steel Company went into voluntary -liquidation in 1952, and all the mining rights passed to the -original freeholders, who are now the British Government."</p> - -<p>Adams and I climbed over a wooden fence stile, and after -a couple of more minutes of uphill walking we arrived at the -top of Shakespeare Cliff. We approached to a point near the -edge and kneeled in the tall grass, buffeted by a strong afternoon -wind that struck us squarely in the face. It was a magnificent -view. The Channel lay very far below us, and although -I could not see the coast of France because of the haze—Adams -said that on a fine day anybody could see clearly the -clock tower outside Boulogne—I could see shipping scudding -along in whitecaps in the middle of the Strait. To the left -of us, not far away, lay the Admiralty Pier at Dover, the -one that once had the great gun which the <cite>Illustrated London -News</cite> had imaginatively depicted in the act of blowing the -tunnel entrance to pieces at the first sign of a French invasion -of England through the tunnel.</p> - -<p>Then, on hands and knees, we crawled against the pommeling -wind to the very edge of the cliff, and lying on our stomachs -peered straight down upon the site of the Shakespeare -Cliff tunnel. I still had traces of the headache I had picked -up while creeping around in the depths of the Abbots Cliff -tunnel and it was a dizzying change for me now to peer three -hundred feet down a sheer cliff face, but it was worth it, even -though there was nothing so startling to see. Far below us -lay a plateau with a couple of railway sidings on it. There -were no buildings about, and certainly nothing that resembled -any trace of a mine entrance. "British Railways had to -build a sea wall around the whole Shakespeare Cliff area a -few years ago because of the erosion from the Channel, and - -<span class="pagenum">[119]</span> - -when we were doing that we cleaned out all the old mine -workings," Adams said. "One of the last buildings to go was -a shed that the old custodian of the works used to live in. His -name was Charlie Gatehouse. He died about ten years ago at -the age of ninety. He had worked as a timberman on both the -Abbots Cliff and Shakespeare Cliff tunnels, and he took up -the first sod when they dug the shaft down here. He used to -tell about how one day Mr. Gladstone came down into the -tunnel."</p> - -<p>Then Adams pointed out to me exactly where the entrance -to Number Two shaft had been. It lay by the third -rain puddle to the left near one of the sidings. I enjoyed the -thought of having its location fixed in my mind, and I believe -Mr. Adams did, too. We gazed down silently. "Just imagine, -if the Board of Trade hadn't stopped the works, a man might -have been able to go right on to Vladivostock without getting -out of his train," Adams said after a while. And he added -earnestly, "But I think they'll build the tunnel yet."</p> - -<p>Since my visit to the tunnel, the tendency of events has -been to reinforce the brave hopes of Adams and his fellow -pro-tunnelers. To be sure, while even the most dedicated of -tunnel promoters may be prone to his black moments while -pondering the nature and the effects of traditional British -insularity—one of the most distinguished, Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, -the president of the Tunnel Study Group, a while -ago observed with some touch of bitterness that it seemed -as though "men may be flying to the moon before Britons -can make a reasonable surface journey to Paris"—Britain's -decision to seek full membership in the European Common -Market, and the agreement of the French and British Governments -to hold official talks on the construction of either a -tunnel or a bridge across the Channel, have given the pro-tunnelers -more solid reason for hope than perhaps has ever -existed in the ranks of these visionaries in a century and a - -<span class="pagenum">[120]</span> - -half. In the past, it was never possible for proponents of the -tunnel to advance their cause with any success so long as -their advocacy was not based on the prior existence of any -profound change in Britain's traditional economic and strategic -special and separate place in Europe, or of any change -in the peculiar British sense of being an island people apart. -But now such changes have taken place, or are in the process -of taking place. Britain's strategic position has been profoundly -altered by the advent of nuclear and rocket armaments. -Her political and economic position has been as -profoundly altered by the withering away of the British -Empire and by the successful emergence of a new European -commonwealth in the form of the Common Market. And the -ancient British sense of being an island race apart seems to -have been steadily eroded by a strange kind of rootlessness, -partly arising out of Britain's altered place in the world, -and as a general accompaniment of the intrusion of such -uninsular influences as the jet airplane, commercial television, -high-powered advertising, expense-account living, and -the spread of installment buying. Notwithstanding all her -misgivings on the subject of committing herself to abandonment -of her ancient aloofness from the Continent, Britain -can hardly ignore the implications of the relentless march of -that process once described by the Duke of Wellington over -a century ago in the heyday of the sailing ship, when he observed -that Britain and the Continent were rapidly becoming -joined by an "isthmus of steam."</p> - -<p>Now that so many of the conditions that have made for -England's traditional economic, military, and cultural insularity -have gradually subsided, like the ancient Wealden -Island that once lay in what is now the Strait of Dover, the -question of connecting Britain physically to the Continent is -at last in the realm of practical political possibility. In spite -of all her misgivings about the abandonment of her privileged - -<span class="pagenum">[121]</span> - -relationships with the countries of the British Commonwealth, -it seems as though Britain has no choice ahead but to -throw in her lot with the Common Market, which has proved -itself to be such an astonishing success in its four years of -existence.</p> - -<p>Since 1958, when the special trade arrangements between -the countries of the European Economic Community went -into effect, up to 1960, their industrial production increased -by 22 per cent, while Britain's industrial production increased -only 11 per cent. And it has been estimated that by -1970 the Gross National Product of the Common Market -countries will double that of 1961. This estimate does not -take into account Britain's joining the Common Market, -either; when she does so, as it seems she must, the Common -Market boom will be a spectacular one; the member countries -will then be serving a market of more than 200 million people. -Precisely what Britain's entry into the Common Market -would mean in terms of increased commercial intercourse between -Britain and the Continent no one knows, but the increase -plainly would be enormous, and considering this -potentiality, proponents of the Channel tunnel are not backward -in claiming that Britain's present cross-Channel transportation -facilities are grossly inadequate to meet the -demands ahead. They are even inadequate, the pro-tunnelers -claim, for coping with Britain's present needs.</p> - -<p>As things stand, some 8 million passengers and about 400,000 -vehicles cross the Channel in a year. Of these, 3.3 million -passengers and about 100,000 vehicles go by air. Most of this -traffic crisscrosses the Channel in the four peak summer -months and results in severe bottlenecks in the existing means -of communication. (A motorist who wishes to take his car -abroad either by air or sea-ferry during the peak season -must book a passage some months ahead of time, and if he -can't make it on the assigned date "he runs the risk," as one - -<span class="pagenum">[122]</span> - -of the tunnel promoters has put it, "of being marooned on -this island for several more months.") Even without taking -into account Britain's probable entry into the Common Market, -the number of vehicles crossing Britain and the Continent -probably will double itself by 1965.</p> - -<p>The Channel Tunnel Study Group people claim that -neither the existing air nor sea-ferry services are equipped to -handle anything like this potential load. They estimate that -without construction of a tunnel, the British and French Governments, -through their nationalized rail and air lines, will -be obliged to spend some $90,000,000 in the next five years to -replace or expand existing transport facilities if they are to -keep up with the increase in cross-Channel traffic expected in -that time without Britain's participation in the Common -Market. As for the capacity of the tunnel, the promoters -claim that all the road vehicles that crossed the Channel in -1960 could easily be carried through the tunnel in three or -four days. As for the transporting of merchandise, 11,000,000 -tons of it are now being moved across the Channel -in a year, most of this in bulk form—coal, for example—which -it would not be practical to send through a tunnel. But -of this freight, well over a million tons of nonbulk goods -could, the Study Group declares, be sent by tunnel, and at -about half the rates now prevailing.</p> - -<p>Taking into account such economic advantages, the great -boon to tourism that they believe a tunnel would represent, -and the intangible psychological impetus that they claim a -fixed link between France and Britain would give to the -dream of a politically as well as economically united Europe, -the pro-tunnelers believe that the construction of their railway -under the Channel would be just about the greatest thing -to happen to Britain in this century.</p> - -<p>The Channel Tunnel Study Group people, as it turned out -late last year, are not alone in their ambitions for a physical - -<span class="pagenum">[123]</span> - -connection between France and Britain. Last fall, when the -French and British Governments decided—on British initiative—to -negotiate with each other on a fixed connection -between the two countries, it became clear that a dark horse -had been entered in the Channel sweepstakes with the publicizing -of the new proposal for a cross-Channel bridge made -by a new French company that is headed by Jules Moch, a former -French Minister of Interior. The bridge proposed by the -new French company would be a multipurpose affair of steel -capable of carrying not only two railroad lines but five lanes -of motor traffic and even two bicycle tracks. It would extend -between Dover and a point near Calais. Its width would be -115 feet and its height 230 feet, allowing (as the Tunnel -Study Group's proposed bridge scheme would) ample clearance -for the largest ocean liners afloat. Its length would be -21 miles; it would rest on 164 concrete piles 65 feet in diameter -and sunk 660 feet apart. Motorists would travel -along it, without any speed limit, at a peak rate of 5,000 -vehicles an hour, and an average toll of about $22.50 per car. -The bridge would take between four and six years to construct, -and as for the cost, that would run to about $630,000,000—or -$266,000,000 more than the estimated cost of a -rail tunnel. Despite some backing that the new French bridge -group appears to have established for its scheme among -French commercial circles, the chances are that the British -Government, as representatives of a maritime nation, will -have a number of objections to this plan for spanning the -Channel. A principal objection—a technical one that has confounded -all the Channel bridge planners from Thomé de -Gamond's day onward—is the hazard to navigation within -the Strait of Dover that a bridge would create. The English -Channel is one of the most heavily trafficked sea lanes in the -world, and considering the violent state of wind and sea -within the Strait of Dover for much of the year—as well as - -<span class="pagenum">[124]</span> - -the heavy Channel fogs—insuring safe passage between the -piers of such a bridge for all the thousands of ships that pass -through the Strait every year, in all weathers, would pose -formidable problems even in the era of radar. Also, the Channel-tunnel -advocates, who already have considered a bridge -and pretty much rejected the idea because of its high cost, -point to other difficulties standing in the way of the bridge -idea—for example, the requirements of international law, -which would make necessary a special treaty signed by all -countries (including Russia) presently sending ships through -the Channel before such an obstruction to navigation could -be constructed; the difficulties, with all the bad weather, of -keeping such an enormous structure in good repair; and the -dangers of Channel gales to light European cars traversing -the bridge. (The French bridge advocates claim that they -could reduce the winds buffeting traffic to a quarter of their -intensity by installing deflectors on the sides of the traffic -lanes; to this the tunnel advocates counter that boxing -cars in traffic lanes for some twenty-one miles would create a -psychological sense of confinement that drivers would find -far more intimidating than riding on a train under the sea.) -But the main objection to the bridge is its cost. It could only -be built with the help of substantial government subsidies, -and the experience of the pro-tunnelers is that such subsidies -are almost impossible to obtain.</p> - -<p>Whatever the merits of the two schemes, they are certain -to be considered in quite a different atmosphere now than -they were back in the seventies, when, according to the observations -that Sir Garnet Wolseley subsequently made to -Sir Archibald Alison's scientific committee that investigated -the tunnel question, "the tunnel scheme was ... looked upon -as fanciful and unfeasible. It was not then regarded as having -entered within the zone or scope of practical undertakings. -No one believed that it would ever be made and, if - -<span class="pagenum">[125]</span> - -mentioned, it always raised a smile, as does now any reference -to flying machines as substitutes for railways." On August -28, 1961, things somehow seemed to come full circle when the -London <cite>Times</cite>, which had started all the opposition in the -press to the tunnel eighty years earlier, devoted a leading -editorial to discussion of the subject of a fixed connection between -France and Britain. The <cite>Times</cite> started out in familiar -fashion for a tunnel editorial by quoting from Shakespeare's -"This royal throne" speech, but then it went on to concede -in stately fashion that times had changed and that "Britain -must soon decide whether to leap over the wall, to become a -part of Europe." The <cite>Times</cite> discussed the merits of the -latest tunnel and bridge schemes in tones of expository reasonableness, -without committing itself to either one scheme -or the other, and without accusing the would-be moat-crossers, -as of old, of flaunting the will of Providence. And the -<cite>Times</cite> wound up its editorial on a meaningful note by observing, -in reference to the quotations with which the editorial -had been prefaced, that while Shakespeare had the first -words, John Donne deserved the last:</p> - -<p class="center">"No man is an island, entire of itself."</p> - -<p>To which all the tunnel dreamers, after all their years of -adversity in the face of the insular British character, reasonably -can say Amen.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>About the Author</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Thomas Whiteside</span> <i>was born in England -in 1918 at Berwick-upon-Tweed, on the Scottish border. After working -as a newspaperman in Canada, he came to this country in 1940. He is a -United States citizen. After wartime service with the Office of War -Information, he worked as a reporter for</i> The New Republic, <i>and -for some years he has been a writer for</i> The New Yorker. <i>Mr. -Whiteside is married to a French-born wife and has three children. -They live in Greenwich Village. He is the author of <cite>The Relaxed -Sell,</cite> published in 1954</i>. -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> -<div class="transnote"> -<p><span class="smcap">Transcriber's Notes.</span></p> -<p>1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical - errors.</p> -<p>2. A number of the illustrations in the original are double page spreads. -In this digital edition they have been reduced to a single page width.</p> -</div> -</div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="break-before"> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_endpaper_gray_l.jpg" width="600" height="818" alt="Endpaper (left)." /> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="break-before"> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_endpaper_gray_r.jpg" width="600" height="812" alt="Endpaper (right)." /> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TUNNEL UNDER THE CHANNEL ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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