APPENDIX HI 



PROPOSED SUBMERGED BUOYANT BRIDGE 

 BETWEEN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND 

 FOR RAILWAY PURPOSES. 



The President said that before calling on Mr. Maxton to read 

 his paper, which formed the special business of the evening, he 

 (the President) should like to point out that the amount of 

 public attention recently drawn to the possibility of con- 

 structing a tunnel between Scotland and Ireland, made the 

 subject of Mr. Maxton's paper one of absorbing interest. It 

 would be totally impossible to estimate the advantage that 

 would accrue to this country if railway communication could 

 be established between Ireland and Scotland and England. 

 Of course as a commercial speculation it could scarcely be 

 called feasible, but he thought that the question was not 

 altogether whether it would be a commercial ^success, but 

 whether it would be of imperial interest to England and 

 Ireland if a tunnel was made. With regard to the making of 

 a tunnel between England and France, certain political questions 

 arose which might be answered either in the affirmative or the 

 negative. No such objection could be raised to the construction 

 of a tunnel or some other means of Railway communication 

 between Ireland and England or Scotland : but there was an 

 imperial question which would have to be considered in 

 connection with any such scheme proposed, either a " floating 

 bridge " scheme, such as Mr. Maxton proposed, or any other. 

 There was the possibility of this country being at war with 

 some other country, when the tunnel or bridge might be 

 destroyed by dynamite. This was a result which they might 



