Page:The Channel Tunnel, Ought the Democracy to Oppose Or Support It?.djvu/19

 or reinforcements, the risk that we should again obtain command of the Channel in the former case, and the power to draw indefinite supplies through the tunnel in the latter case. The letter brings into relief the fact that even if we succeeded in preventing an invader from coming on our soil by means of this communication, it would be a great aid to invaders who had actually made good their footing otherwise." "'The possession of both ends would render the invader independent of the sea. &hellip; Night and day a stream of troops and supplies would be pouring through the tunnel, possibly under the keels of our victorious but helpless Channel fleet. Now, in this case—and I would impress this point—it would no longer be a contest between two armies, but between the entire military resources of France on the one side and what we could oppose on the other.' Thus a tunnel makes hostile occupation, if not invasion, easier."

I submit that this is really carrying panic to madness point, for, if an invading army, large enough and strong enough to capture Dover, had landed otherwise than through the tunnel, our state must have become so hopeless that discussion as to how such an enemy would get supplies and reinforcement would cease to be material. Such an army so invading England, otherwise than by the tunnel, would be as dangerous to England whether or not the tunnel existed.

The view now put forward by Sir E. Hamley was fully raised and considered in 1883, and discussed in the Minority Report of Lord Lansdowne, Lord Aberdare, the Right Hon. W. E. Baxter, and Mr. Peel, now Speaker of the House of Commons. The editor of the Times treats Sir E. Hamley's objection as not having been answered;