Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-24

land was on the verge of famine owing
10 the interruption of food supplies
by sea.
In a paper written in 1918 by Gen
SIR William Butler appears the fol-
lowing paragraph, which seems timely
today. Is years after. He said:
The Channel tunnel has come back
10 us after sleep of Is years, and so
have the old Nightmares and COLLINS of
that time. Had the tunnel from Dover
to Calais been made in the eighties
several millions of men, women and
children would by this time have passed
through It, and the journey under the
sea would have become as much a mat
Ter OF commonplace business as a trip
IN the tuppenny tube from Noting
HUI to Oxford street. Every age is
destined to have its particular DOGGY,
In the thirties and forties it was the
railroad, line from London to Ports
mouth, believe. being the chief
DOGGY. The DOGGY of the six
ties was the Suez Canal 'What?' cried
the prophets of pessimism, cut the
!sthmus OF Suez and enable a ship
70 pass from the Mediterranean into
the Red Sea? Then good-by to British
supremacy in the East y For the
past 40 years Germany, France and
ataly nave been boring tunnels through
the Alps and nothing terrible has hap
pened."
1t is significant that while this
prophetic declaration OF the innocuous-
ness OF a tunnel was made a year be-
for the World War broke, yet during
all the war no tunnel attack was made
by any belligerent, for a tunnel can be
defended as we'll as attacked.
In the new tunnel will be sections
which could be instantly flooded full of
water by the touching of an electric
button in the war departments of either
England or France. That would effec-
tually close passage until the end of
hoStilities, when the water could be
pumped out and there would be nc
damage to the structure. 1t might even
happen that if an enemy of both France
and England were to enter the tunnel
both compartments might fill with wa
ter, and. like the host of Pharaoh. the
attackers would be trapped and drowned
under the sea or Smothered between the
two gates.
While the events of the last two dec
AIDES have tended to allay the fears
against the tunnel project, develop
ments of aviation and the prospect of
still greater developments of aerial traf-
fic within the next decade tend to do
away with the real necessity for such
a costly means of commerce. The Suez
Canal and the Panama Canal changed
the routes OF trade around the world
without greatly jeopardizing British Sc
curity, but aviation during the war did
more to wipe out the protection of the
Channel than the two interoceanic ca
mails ever threatened. According to the
engineers, 1t will take six years labor to
construct a Channel tunnel. What will
be the facilities by air in six years be-
fore such tunnel can come into use?
Even today one flies from Paris to Lon
don IN less than three hours, under con-
ditions OF ideal comfort when the
weather is favorable. There is no greater
risk than exists in surface crossing and
TAR less discomfort.
We moderns seem to think we have
blaZed a new way in creating tunnels
of unprecedented magnitude. History
tells us OF mighty enterprise in Mex
leo, soon after the Cortez conquest of
Montezuma and the Aztec empire,
which is not yet surpassed in modern
engineering. There was great food
which inundated the Aztec capital; the
Guy rests III the great BOWL called the
Valley OF Mexico. The water refused
to recede, but made a Venice of the
city for several years. Then Spanish
engineer undertook to dig a drainage
tunnel through the mountains. 1t per-
sisted in caving in until it had swal-
lowed up 100000 native Indian dig
gers. Orders came from Spain to re-
build the city on higher land, but an
earthquake opened the ground and the
water disappeared from the city. Later,
the tunnel was opened as canal, and
it still exists. known as Nochistcnga
Ditch-an engineering feat rivaling the
Panama Canal. with ndte of the mod
ern excayating machinery for its con-