A VISIT TO THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. 69 



and that in social and national life the English 

 would become assimilated to Continental ideas. 

 Some of our insular prejudices might with great 

 advantage be replaced by more cosmopolitan notions. 

 But why should not the reverse process take place 

 in the leavening of French society with English 

 sentiments and ideas ? Such objections, however, 

 are hardly worth considering, for they cut at the 

 root of all intercourse between nations, and would, 

 if carried to their logical issue, lead us into Chinese 

 exclusiveness and stagnation. 



The weightiest objection against the construction 

 of the tunnel, and the one that is likely to prove 

 fatal to the scheme, is that which is raised by the 

 military authorities of the country. There would, 

 say our leading generals, be a standing danger in 

 the possibility of an enemy possessing himself of 

 the entire works, and so effecting an easy entrance 

 into our very midst ; and, moreover, in time of 

 diplomatic differences there would be the recurrence 

 of panics which might lead to the unnecessary 

 destruction of valuable property. Sir Lintorn 

 Simmons, Inspector of Fortifications, amused the 

 Committee of Inquiry by stating his opinion that a 

 government so insane as to permit a tunnel being 

 made, would be insane enough not to destroy it in 

 time of danger. 



The idea of invading England by means of a 

 submarine passage is not a new one. There is an old 

 engraving in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, 

 dated 1803, which shows that Napoleon, then First 



