"Expensive Holes"

Stubbornly shaking his head, George Rowland Blades, Baron Ebbisham, onetime (1926-27) Lord Mayor of London and Alderman for the Ward of Bassishaw, was the only dissenting member of a board of five which last week enthusiastically endorsed the long-shelved project to build a 20-odd-mile tunnel under the English Channel, connect London and Paris by rail. Not so Lord Ebbisham. Pressed for reasons, he contented himself with remarking ominously: "The displacement of sailors on the Cross-Channel Route would be regrettable."

Soon after the first public passenger-carrying railway was finished (1825), forward-thinking Britishers proposed and designed tunnels under the English Channel. Always the plans were nipped by timorous Tories/- with the same excuse: a Channel tunnel would rob Britain of her sacred isolation. In case of war some future William the Conqueror might march through the tunnel, instantly flood Britain with a French army.

In 1867 a French engineer, one J. A. Thome de Gamond, exhibited the first practical drawings for a Channel Tunnel. In 1875 tne Gunnel Tunnel Co. (still in existence) was organized. Queen Victoria spurred the idea by announcing: "All the women of England will bless the builder of the tunnel for saving them from seasickness," Preliminary borings were actually started. From the chalk cliffs of Dover and from the French shore near Sangatte, mile-long galleries were driven out under the Channel floor. Proving the theory of Engineer de Gamond that the Dover chalk beds run out under the Channel, these abandoned galleries are still bone dry, impervious, free from fissures.

In 1883, largely because of a screaming campaign conducted by the London Times, the tunnel project was defeated in Parliament. To pacify the militarists the tunnel plans were redrawn to include two dips, one on the French side, one on the British. In case of war these could be instantly flooded with sea water. In 1914 the Channel tunnel again came before Parliament. Two weeks before war was declared the project was suddenly quashed by the Committee of Imperial Defense.

Airplanes, long range guns, the intricacies of modern warfare have made military objections to the tunnel rather silly. Apart from the glaring advantages of direct communication with the Continent, unemployment in Britain has made the tunnel project a favorite with politicians. One of the last acts of the Conservative Government of Stanley Baldwin was the appointment of the Commission which last week made its report.

The recommendations:

1) Let a "pilot tunnel" be driven across the Channel at once at an estimated cost of $25,000,000 to test the geological and engineering problems involved. This pilot tunnel later to become a drainage and ventilator tube for the two main traffic tunnels.

2) If the pilot tunnel proves successful, contract for the main tunnels, at an estimated additional cost of $125,000,000 to be awarded to private enterprise with an understanding that the operating company would not charge much more than $5 per passenger for the 20-mile tunnel ride.

Engineers added additional facts. The longest vehicular tunnel in the world at the present time is the 12-mile Simplon tunnel in Switzerland. With its approaches, the Channel Tunnel would be nearer 40 than 20 miles long. It should take about eight years to build, would employ about 7,000 British workmen.

President of the Channel Tunnel Co. Ltd. is Baron Emile Beaumont d'Erlanger, potent internationalist, chairman of the great Anglo-French banking firm of Erlangers, Ltd., naturalized Briton. Enthusiastic fellow supporters include H. Gordon Selfridge, U. S.-born London department store tycoon, and Sir William Bull, senior partner of Bull and Bull, eloquent solicitors. They were pleased but cautious at last week's report. Beside the obvious opposition of cross-Channel steamship companies, other timorous Tories like Lord Ebbisham, the Channel tunnel must still be approved by the Committee of Imperial Defense.

The London Times, still faithful to its policies of 1883, commented last week:

"To most of us in these days of swifter and simpler transportation, not including airlines, it seems incredible that we should fall back upon the primitive expedient of digging expensive holes in the ground."

/-Other outstanding examples of Tory timidity: for 20 years the British Admiralty refused to sanction steam engines for men o'war, called them visionary, impractical. The eagle-beaked Duke of Wellington spoke bitterly against the International Exhibition of 1851 because it would "bring too many strangers into the country." The British Museum Library has consistently refused to adopt a card catalog, elaborately enters every acquisition in bulky ledgers. Excuse: "The sharp bits of pasteboard are apt to cut one's fingers."

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