THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 2 October 1913, Page 4

THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.

Sir A. Conan Doyle ridicules 4ne' idea of any- national danger ffOM the proposed English Channel tunnel. "It in admitted on all haads," her say,s, in a letter to the London Times, "that the greatest danger which can threaten this couartry in war is the possible failure and certain diminution of our food supplies. Weighty authorities have stated that a single defeat at sea might entail our absolute surrender. Recent years have seen the development of a new great European navy and of a political situation which might conceivably place it in opposition to our own. An adequate tunnel would certainly lessen the difficulty of our food supplies, since it would plcae us in communication with the whole Mediterranean basin through Marseilles. Even granting that we held the seas successfully, it would to some extent relievo our- navy of that duty of protecting our food cargoes which must talcs something from its strength. As to the danger involved, the idea of the invasion' of a gr«at country through a hole in the ground 26 miles long and as many feet broad seems to me to ho a m»st fantastic one. An enemy to use the tunnel !faw to hold both ends of it. In the unlikely event of a quarrel with France it is surely' not difficult to seal up our end'."'