THE CHANNEL TUNNEL NEW HOPE FOR AN OLD IDEA

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28258, 22 April 1957, Page 10

THE CHANNEL TUNNEL NEW HOPE FOR AN OLD IDEA

[By a Special Correspondent of “The Times”!

The Channel Tunnel controversy has agitated the nation at intervals over the last 90 years. So venerable and inconclusive a debate has left a lot of tinder lying about, and there are several sparks in the air. One comes from New York, where a company has been formed with the object of promoting the construction of a tunnel and financing it from private, including dollar, sources. The company’s agents have been in London and Paris during the last few weeks negotiating the formation of parallel companies there and sounding out the two governments. The Universal Suez Canal Company, also, once it has settled its score with Colonel Nasser, may be expected to look round for other outlets for its capital and organisation, and it is thought to have already cast interested glances at the Channel. The first design for this historic project is generally credited in the French pngineer, Mathiu, who interested Napoleon in the idea after the Treaty of Amiens. His scheme, which was visionary, included an artificial island in the middle of the straits, where post horses could come up for a breather. The first plan to be securely based on geological study of the bed of the Channel was conceived by another Frenchman. Thome de Gamond. It was put up to Napoleon 111 almost exactly 100 years ago and was later shown in greater detail at the Paris Exhibition of 1867.

200-yard Gallery „ In the heyday of Victorian capitalism and civil engineering the id 2a was eagerly taken up. Companies were formed on both sides of the Channel and experimental borings were begun. The Societe Concessionaire du Chemin de Fer Sous-Marin entre la France et I’Angleterre, which started work at Sangatte, near Cap GrisNez, still exists with, it is relieved,■ a valid concession. In England, first the Channel Tunnel Company and then the South Eastern Railway secured limited powers by acts of Parliament. Experimental workings were begun at Shakespeare Cliff and a gallery was driven for some 2000 yards under the bed of the sea. It is now full of water. e In 1886 the various rights ana assets were merged in the Channel Tunnel Company which, like its French counterpart, is still in being. Meanwhile at the diplomatic level a convention between the British and French Governments had been drafted and awaited parliamentary ratification. About 1880 objections to the whole idea began to be raised in influential quarters. A submarine tunnel, it was said, would con- ' stitute a threat to the security and traditions of the island. In pic- ; turesque language, Sir Garnet. Wolseley, who was at that time Adjutant-General, condemned it as “a measure intended to annihilate all the advantages we have hitherto enjoyed from the existence of the ‘silver streak.’ ” In vain was it pointed out that Palmerston had opposed the Suez Canal as endangering the Indian Empire and that the great Duke of Wellington had criticised the construction of a railway from Portsmouth to London as facilitating the movement of French troops on the capital, and that both these opinions had proved unduly alarmist. Sir Garnet Wolseley. had touched a deep instinct in his countrymen. Petitions calling for a suspension of operations began to pour in, signed, as an exasperated Frenchman recorded, by

“lords, earls, baronets, admirals, generals, bishops, a crowd of clergymen, poets, philosophers, Herbert Spencer in person, the poet and thinker Robert Browning, the learned Professor Huxley, etc.” A joint select committee of both Houses of Parliament was appointed to examine the question and in 1883 came out against

a tunnel. Without the sanction of Parliament no further progress could be made. Attempts at Revival Numerous attempts have been made since then to have that decision reversed, and some have only narrowly failed. But with the Committee of Imperial Defence in opposition no Government was going to be let in for the scheme if they could help it. The last time the question came to the fore was in 1929 when Baldwin charged a committee of the Economic Advisory Council with an examination of the economic implications of the tunnel. The committee reported the following year that “the construction of a Channel tunnel . . . would be of economic advantage to the country.’’ Their conclusion, however, was hesitant, and it was noted that whereas they found little positive enthusiasm for a tunnel in industrial or commercial circles, some agricultural and shipping interests were definitely hostile. This gave the Government a pretext for turning the idea down, to which they added the traditional objection reiterated by the Committee of Imperial Defence. Nevertheless, a motion in favour of the tunnel was defeated in the Commons by only seven votes. , a A number of factors led advocates of the tunnel to believe that circumstances are now more favourable. First, there have been hints of a change of attitude in the British Government. In February, 1955, Mr Macmillan, then Minister of Defence, when asked in the House to what extent strategical objections still weighed, replied: “Scarcely at all.” And recently Lord Mancroft, Parliamentary Secretary •to the Ministry of Defence, described the tunnel as a “realistic aim’’ and said it was something they would have to look at again. If this means that strategical objections are no longer held to be valid, the chief stumbling block of 80 years is removed.

Traffic and Continent Grow Promoters also point to the progressive increase since the war of passenger traffic between Great Britain and the Continent; the growth of sentiment in favour of closer European union towards which a Channel tunnel would make a strong psychological contribution even if its more practical effects were not great; and, above all, the prospect of British participation in a European free trade area. The larger volume of trade between Britain and the Continent which that policy is expected to bring about strengthens the argument for a land link; while the view has been expressed (it came recently from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders) that if British manufacturers are to compete on level terms with their Continental rivals they must not be at too great a disadvantage in the transportation of their products, and for this condition a tunnel is indispensable. The proposals which have been brought over from New York are for the formation of societes d’etudes on both sides of the Channel which would carry but full geological, technical, economic, and traffic studies; £75,000 is immediately available for this purpose, but it is recognised that it is useless to proceed without assurances of benevolence from the British and French Governments. The French Government is known to favour the idea in principle, but the attitude of the British Government is still uncertain. Should it be favourable and should the technical studies confirm the belief that a tunnel is feasible at a cost that would make it a sound investment, capital would be raised (£loom is the present rough estimate) in British, French, and other foreign markets, much of it, the assumption is, in dollars.

Still in Embryo In 1930, which was the last time the possibilities were fully explored, it was found that a pilot tunnel would have to be built at a cost of £5,600,000 before the practicability of constructing the traffic tunnels (which were then planned as two railway tracks) could be placed beyond doubt There was the risk of encountering faults or fissures in the lower chalk stratum which might vastly increase the cost of tunnelling. There is now the prospect that this element of doubt could be removed during the preliminary studies by means of new techniques of geological surveying which have been developed chiefly for oil prospecting. The scheme is still in embryo. Even if it progresses, there are many hot debates ahead, Should there be a road as well as rails, would the traffic justify the heavy cost of ventilating a road tunnel? What degree and form of Government participation and Government control should be adopted? But before effective decisions are taken on any of these questions it will be necessary to lay Wolseley’s ghost. The patriotic insularity to which he appealed in his condemnation of a tunnel may be more in the heart than in the head. That does not make it self-effacing.