Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-10-25
The Channel Tunnel.

Ne5c York Times.
The opposition which is shown in
England TO the projeds of tunnel under
the British Channel creates no little won
der in this country. People do not
understand whyEnglishmen should fancy
that the tunnel would expose England
to the danger of. invasion from France.
1t seems to most of us as if it would be
much more difficult to prevent an invad-
ing force from crossing the Channel in
steamers than 1t would be to successfully
defend a narrow pathway like that
afforded by the tunnel. Nevertheless,
English public opinion is overwhelmingly
opposed to the tunnel project, and nearly
all the prominent British Generals, in
Guiding Sir Garnet WOlseley, assert that
England would never be safe were the
tunnel to be constructed.
There is, however, one officer-Gen.
Alison-who has just published what
appears to be plan for making the pro
posed tunnel perfectly safe He main
tains that the tunnel need not be a source
of danger, provided a few simple pre-
cautions are taken. In his opinion
arrangements should be made for filling
the tunnel with asphyxiating gas, for
letting the channel water into it, and for
blowing up the approach to it on the
English side. In addition to these pre-
cautions, he says that a first
class fortress should be built
at the entrance TO the tunnel. If
the constructors and managers of the
tunnel are willing to adopt all these pre-
cautions, Gen. Alison thinks that England
will be reasonably free from the danger
of invasion, and there is every reason to
believe that he is right 1t so happens,
however, that Gen. Alison has only in
creased the intensity of public oppOsi-
ton to the tunnel, which is without
doubt precisely what he meant to do,
and the English press is now remarking
that if all the precautions mentioned by
Gen. Alison are really necessary, it will
be much cheaper and safer not to make
the tunnel.
We may concede that if the tunnel
were to be constructed and all the defen-
sive measures recommended by General
Alison were to be adopted, England
would be safe. A French army, after
having been asphyxiated and drowned in
the tunnel and blown up while emerging
from its mouth, would hardly have the
strength and courage necessary to assault
and capture a firstclass fortress It
would be easy enough for British custom
house officers TO stop every train IN the
middle of the tunnel and to search it for
concealed French soldiers. If a few
regiments were to be found concealed
under the seats or in the lug
gage van, the custom house officers
could instantly telegraph to the shore,
and the asphyxiating gas and the Chan
mel water could be turned on and the
hostile regiments satisfactorily disposed
of. Were the Frenchmen to attempt to
cross in freight trains instead of passen-
ger trains they could likewise hardly
escape detection. No matter how the
invading soldiers might be disguised,
whether as cases of claret or as milliners'
supplies, they would be readily detected
by the argus-eyed custom house officers
and either arrested on the charge of
smuggling or summarily asphyxiated and
drowned, as tdey would deserve to be.
But if England is to be saved from
invasion through the tunnel there must
be no mistake made on the part of its
defenders. Let us suppose that the Gus
tom house officers charged with the duty
of searching trains in the middle of the
tunnel should overlook two or three
thousand Frenchmen. The latter could.
IN that case, safely reach the English
shore, when they could capture the first
class fortress by surprise. Or suppose
that the custom house officers on discov-
ering train full of French soldiers should
decline to undergo asphyxiation and
drowning in company with the invaders,
and should prefer to accept a small fee
and close their eyes to the presence of
unlawful Frenchmen. Or suppose that
the telegraph wire should get out of or
der, so that no warning of the approach
of the invaders could be given, or that
the elaborate apparatus for filling the
tunnel with gas or flooding it with water
should not work. Ali these suppositions
may easily be made, and should any one
of them become a fact, hostile army
could land almost unOppOsed on British
soil.
There is, however, one way in which the
tunnel can be perfectly protected against
an invading army and at the same time the
cost of elaborate preparation for asphyx
iating and drowning the enemy can be
saved. The projectors of the tunnel
propose to make it large, light and airy
1t will be higher and broader than any
other tunnel, it will be lighted by cleo
tricity, so that it will be decidedly lighter
than an ordinary London street, and it
will be kept cool and well ventilated by
a new and admirable system. In short,
the passage through the tunnel will be
made at least as pleasant as any ordinary
railway journey, and passengers will be
saved the unpleasant sensations that
ordinarily accompany the plunging of a
railway train into the bowels of the
earth.
Now, were the Englishmen to employ
Mr.. Vanderbilt to construct and operate
the tunnel, it would, as we all know, be
very different sort of place. 1t would
be dark, damp and sitting. Into such
a tunnel no Frenchman could be induced
to enter. Troops that would march fear
less y up to a German battery would ut
terly refuse to run the tremendous risks
and incur the unspeakable miseries of a
trip through a Vanderbilt tunnel If
Englishmen want tunnel through which
no invader will ever march, let them
send for Mr.. Vanderbilt, and if he can
be induced to construct channel tunnel
that will be anything like as uncomforta-
BILE and dangerous as Fourth avenue tun-
mel, England will be perfectly safe.