THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2020, 4 March 1907, Page 1

THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.

The strong feeling against the recently revived proposition England of the advantages of her geographical isolation finds earnest expression in the pages of the National Review, where the question is discussed from an economic, and from a strategic, point of view. Failcompetition ' between France and the mother country is rendered impossible, owing to their conflicting fiscal systems, under which France does an enormous trade with her opposite neighbor, whose exports of manufactured articles across the channel have dwindled lamentably. With a tunnel an immense increase would immediately take place in British imports from France, while the duties averaging 3 4per cent .ad valorem, which are levied upon British commodities at the French Custom House, would effectually jirevont the balance of trade bein'* adjusted by an interchange of goods. Therefore, “it would be impossible to conceive a more one-sided or disastrous enterprise from our standpoint.” The writer lays great stress upon the military danger of the tunnel, for ■while it is true that at present an excellent understanding exists between the two nations more immediately concerned, yet its permanence cannot bo guaranteed; and in the meantime Great Britain is not armed and organised for war, and there is nothing to prevent a raid being directed against the English end of the tunnel in any period of foreign complications. And, although such a tunnel could bo easily blocked or destroyed in the hour of danger, “the order would probably be delayed until the last minute, and then might be given too late.” Tills was actually wliat did occur during the Franco-German war, when mines wore laid in the tunnels through the Vosges, and in the deep cuttings of the Strasburg-Paris railway, in order to check the advance of the enemy, but owing to some “inexplicable oversight” were never fired. It is contended that a bridge across the channel would be preferable from every point of view to a tunnel under the water. “No coup de main could secure a bridge against the action of the British navy, and modern engineering skill is certainequal to the construction of such a bridge,’'