CHANNEL TUNNEL INVASION MYTH.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 April 1929, Page 8

CHANNEL TUNNEL INVASION MYTH.

FRENCH M EXISTED'B STATEMENT. PARIS, Feb. o. Jl is realised here* that the new view which is being ta}<en ill England of the Channel Tunnel partly originates in the transformation of the mode of warfare during the last decade and that the detelopmeut of aviation Inis perhaps impaired in the British people the sense of its insularity. For that reason the following remarks M. Laurent Eynac, Minister of Air under M. Poiiw-are, volunteered to make in the course of a. friendly conversation, may 'he read with interest. Air Eynac said; The Channel Tunnel! It can lasaid without any paradox whatever that the construction of the tunnel, which has been postponed for stieli a long time, will be regarded by the generations to come, whenever m the future they look back to tlie present day, as merely an episode in the subjugation of air by mankind.

I shall make clear what I have in mind by observing that tin* possibility of an attack from the air force (lying high above the sea a possibility that every thinking man must henceforward Lake into consideration —cannot but base, by way of contrast the result to discredit all the common Lalk a'bout the supposed danger for Great Britain of a submarine connection with France.

POWERS OF THE INVADERS. In the past, as far as the Channel Tunnel is concerned, people have settled on a conception which had become traditional and which appeared to them to be self-evident. They imagined that it was within the power of an invader to push bis troops to the conquest of England through the subway under the sea. Now it begins to dawn upon then at last, that no army can make use of the tunnel for ail invasion miles:, it had, at first, seized itsell ul the issue on the British shore and unless nothing should have been done by tin* British authorities to have the wlioh passage lluodcd and destroyed--a doulble-fold assumption of which nobody in liis sense can ever dream. But really, for the sake ol the argument isn’t it granting more- than common sense can allow and plunging head-long in a mare’s nest? The 'problem of the war of the feature opens up vistas which, unlortunately, are much more real: long disLance raids in the air culminating in materia! destruction and panic far beyond the limits of battlefields, in Hu visitation of great cities of the vital junctions in the system of national defence by a mass of sLeel, lire and asphyxiating gases.

BOLT FROM TilF IVLUK. Sueli arc the dangers upon which we ought to concentrate so as to guard against them. We need to be protected against a bolt from the blue Among our defensive lines, not the least important must he drawn above ground, across the air. Let all this be said in alio hope that Lbe very prospect of such devastation will lor evei deter the men from waging war. For tlie time being, we had belter not make the world where we are living still more complicated than it actually is, and not add imaginary perils that cannot lie reasonably conceived to the perils we unfortunately have to face in our calculations and count-er-preparations. Why should we let those imaginary perils block any long or the broad avenue of trade and peaceful relations l

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