Page:The Channel Tunnel, Ought the Democracy to Oppose Or Support It?.djvu/16

 intervention of the English Government, such intervention being the result of a panic created by military alarmists.

In August, 1881, the Board of Trade wrote to the Admiralty that "the work of forming a subway under the Channel was making considerable progress", and that "public susceptibility having been aroused as to possible danger to this country from a tunnel under the Channel", the Board desired "to be fortified with the opinion of the naval and military authorities".

In January, 1882, Admiral Cooper Key sounded the panic trumpet, and did much to excite the opposition which has, up to the present, proved fatally obstructive to the progress of the English borings.

In May, 1882, a memorandum—most important because issued after the panic opposition had got into full cry—was issued by Sir John Adye, then Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, embodying the report of a military committee, presided over by General Sir A. Alison, which had been instructed to consider "the means by which, supposing the Channel Tunnel completed, its use could be interdicted to an enemy in time of war". Sir J. Adye says: "The military precautions necessary to provide against such a contingency almost naturally divide themselves into two parts:—1. The defence or command of the exit by means of batteries and fortifications. 2. The closing or destruction of the tunnel itself, either temporarily or permanently, both as regards its land and submarine portions. The Committee have dealt with both points in some detail. As regards the former they urge, that whilst the land portion of the tunnel should be constructed in the vicinity of a fortress, it is also important that its exit should lie outside but under the full command of the