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SUEZ CANAL & CHANNEL TUNNEL 
 
 fEACE OR War 
 
 WITH France? 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 or 
 
 The Right Honorable JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. 
 
 June 15th, 1883. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE 
 By the Hon. FRANCIS LAWLEY. 
 
 N=&®^^£&%€<fl- 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY C. T. ROWOETH, 
 Bebam's Btjilmhos, Chai»ceey Lame. 
 
 1883 
 
FREF^OB. 
 
 The illustrious Duke of Cambridge, the Commander- 
 in-Chief, gave the following answer to a question in 
 the course of his '•' evidence" before the Select Com- 
 mittee of Members of both Houses appointed to 
 consider and report as to whether France and the 
 Continent of Europe should be annexed to England 
 by a Submarine Tunnel : — 
 
 Question : It has been suggested, in. case of war ■witL. any country 
 but France, we might draw our supplies of food through the Tunnel. 
 I -would like to ask, is not our danger of foreign -war twenty times 
 greater with France than with any other country ? 
 
 Answer : I should imagine so, most certainly. 
 
 The great Lord Nelson believed in hatred to the 
 French as an article of religion ; and the illustrious 
 Duke, evidently, is a believer in this dogma, and, 
 in addition, has " invasion on the brain." It is not 
 the object of the following pages to ask how 
 it is that, with a military and naval annual outlay of 
 twenty-seven millions and a half pounds sterling, 
 contributed by the tax-payers of the country, the 
 national defences should be in so deplorable a 
 state of weakness as the illustrious Duke and Lord 
 Wolseley represent. Be this as it may, the case 
 wants looking into ; and the country — which neither 
 desires to go to war nor fears any other power, relying 
 on its eight millions of patriotic men — will have to 
 deal with the problem and before long. 
 
 a2 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 The contention of the illustrious Duke and of Lord 
 Wolseley is threefold. First, that we must always 
 expect as a certainty of the future, more or less im- 
 minent war with France ; secondly, that we may, with- 
 out any declaration of war, be invaded by France ; 
 and thirdly, that we are helplessly unable to retaliate 
 by landing a force, in return, on the French coast 
 anywhere. The sturdy speech of the Right Honorable 
 John. Bright, M.P,, now printed by authority, com- 
 pletely demolishes the hob-goblin arguments which 
 have just been repeated for the twentieth time ; and 
 it is thought desirable to supplement that speech by 
 asking Englishmen calmly to consider this dread of 
 French invasion by the lights of history, experience 
 and common sense. 
 
 At the commencement of one of his incomparable 
 " Lectures on Modern History," Dr. Arnold reminded 
 his hearers of the Greek sophist, who discoursed at 
 length upon the art of war when Hannibal happened 
 to be amongst his audience. Some of his hearers, 
 full of admiration for what they deemed the speaker's 
 eloquence and knowledge, applied eagerly to the great 
 general for his opinion, not doubting that it would 
 confirm their own. To their ineffable surprise, Han- 
 nibal's answer was, that he had met with many absurd 
 old men in his life, but never with one so absurd as 
 the lecturer before him. The recollection of this 
 story should never be absent from the minds of un- 
 professional men when they undertake to discuss 
 professional mysteries. " Cuique in arte sua perito 
 credendum est,^' says the Latin proverb ; but, on the 
 other hand, it must never be forgotten, that, as a rule, 
 a man has but one profession, and naturally resents 
 the Procrustean prohibition, which forbids him to pass 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 a judgmeHt upon all subjects lying outside of it. It 
 is, moreover, the inevitable tendency of all professional 
 men to look at their calling from within, and never 
 from -without : for which reason statesmen of the 
 highest class, to whom no subjects ought to come 
 amiss, have to speak and decide upon questions of 
 war, of general policy, of religion, morals, political 
 economy and finance, with a rapidity and precision 
 to which no specialist can pretend to lay claim. Yet, 
 although a statesman cannot be soldier, sailor, lawyer, 
 clergyman, merchant and political economist at once, 
 his unprofessional opinion upon professional subjects 
 is often of the very highest authority. 
 
 Applying these thoughts to warlike matters, we 
 shall see, adds Dr. Arnold, that " the part which unpro- 
 fessional men can least understand is the practical 
 management of soldiers in action and upon parade." 
 Let a man be ever so familiar with military history he 
 must be well aware that upon these points a drill 
 Serjeant, or even an aguerri soldier, knows infinitely 
 more than himself. When, however, we recede from 
 these details, and contemplate the strategy of a general, 
 and the entire management of a campaign, it can- 
 not be doubted that civilians are entitled to be heard 
 upon military topics ; upon the risks which it is pos- 
 sible for soldiers, assisted it may be by sailors, to run ; 
 and upon the moral and political influences which 
 affect every human enterprise. 
 
 If Dr. Arnold were alive to-day no one who had 
 read his "History of Eome," his "Lectures upon 
 Modem History," and the notes to his edition of 
 Thucydides, would entertain the faintest doubt that 
 his opinion upon the advisability, or the reverse, of 
 connecting England with France by a Submarine 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 Tunnel would be received with the very greatest 
 respect. Everything in Dr. Arnold's writings goes to 
 show that he had the instincts not only of a statesman 
 but also of a soldier. During the Crimean War, 
 again, it was notorious that the letters addressed to 
 the Times by "A Hertfordshire Incumbent" — ^the 
 Rev. J. W. Blakesley — ^were of the greatest military 
 value. Here, then, we have two clergymen, who 
 never heard a bullet whistle in anger, and yet were 
 endowed with a peculiar insight into everything 
 bearing upon war. One other instance may be 
 quoted, to show that unmilitary men are sometimes of 
 immense use in their suggestions to soldiers. No man 
 ever enjoyed a greater and more deserved reputation 
 as a military engineer than Sebastian de Vauban, 
 who "fortified 300 ancient citadels, erected 33 new 
 ones, had the principal management and direction of 
 53 sieges, and was present at 140 general engage- 
 ments." Yet he has left it on record that he learnt 
 more about the art of fortification from one Italian 
 civilian, who, although a cripple, helped him to take 
 Luxemburg, than from all the soldiers' he had ever 
 associated with or opposed. The phrase most fre- 
 quently on his lips was, "There is no such engineer 
 as common sense." 
 
 For these reasons the attempt to confine opinions 
 upon the Channel Tunnel to military and naval men 
 alone, and to resent the discussion of this subject by 
 civilians as an insult to our gallant defenders by land 
 and sea, seems as hopeless as it is unreasonable. It 
 may be said of Englishmen, as Pericles said of his 
 compatriots, the Athenians, that "they regard the 
 man without interest in politics as an unprofitable 
 rather than an unmeddlesome member of the com- 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 munity." * To contemplate such a political work as 
 the Channel Tunnel solely through military spectacles, 
 would be tantamount to disregarding every lesson of 
 the past, and to ignoring the arguments of such civilians 
 as Mr. Richard Cobden, whose pamphlet, entitled 
 "The Three Panics: an Historical Episode," pub- 
 lished in 1862, may be warmly commended to the 
 notice of the opponents of a work which, sooner or 
 later, is sure to be completed. Nearly forty years 
 have passed since the first of Mr. Cobden's " Three 
 Panics" shook the English vessel of state from stem 
 to stern. As usual, the panic began with a comparison 
 between the strength of the French and English navies. 
 It was fomented by the publication of a pamphlet or 
 memorandum from the Prince de Joinville's pen, in 
 which the writer concluded with these words: "In 
 this tractate I have compelled myself to make my 
 couiitry undergo an afflicting comparison with a 
 country advanced so much before ourselves in com- 
 prehension of its interests. Although I have been 
 obliged to expose the secrets of our weakness, as com- 
 pared with the greatness of British power, I should 
 think myself happy if, by the sincere avowal of these 
 sorrowful truths, I were able to dissipate the illusion, 
 indulged in by so many well-infornied Frenchmen, 
 as to the real condition of our navy, and to decide 
 them to ask with me for those salutary reforms 
 which can alone give our navy a new era of power 
 and glory." 
 
 The Prince de Joinville's words seemed to imply 
 that at some unknown date in the past, the French 
 
 aXk xxgiXoTi wf^iiC,oiJ.iy. — Thucyd. II. 40. 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 navy had seen "an era of power and glory;" but 
 without pausing to ask him "When?" we may notice 
 that his very harmless wail, which not one Englishman 
 in a million ever read, was misinterpreted as a threat 
 against this country. Towards the end of 1847, this 
 impression was confirmed by the appearance of a 
 " Letter upon our National Defences," written by the 
 Duke of Wellington, which its writer never intended 
 to meet the public eye. 
 
 It is the fashion with American officers, who, as a 
 rule, are closer readers of military history than their 
 English cequaks, to rank Marlborough above Welling- 
 ton, on the ground, perhaps, that the former belongs 
 to America as much as to England, and that the latter 
 is English alone. No living Englishman, however, 
 would be found to speak a disparaging word about the 
 Iron Duke when in his prime. But the Duke's brochure 
 on England's National Defences appeared two and 
 thirty years after Waterloo, his last battle, was fought ; 
 and in 1847 he spoke of himself thus : — " I am border- 
 ing upon seventy -seven years of age, passed in honour. 
 I say, then, that there is not a spot on our southern 
 coast, unless it be immediately under the gims of 
 Dover, upon - which infantry might not be thrown 
 ashore at any time of tide, with any wind, and in any 
 weather." 
 
 Commenting upon this passage, Mr. Cobden says, 
 with irresistible cogency : — 
 
 "Any person in the habit of visiting Hastings or 
 Eastbourne knows that for half the year no prudent 
 mariner brings his vessel within several miles of that 
 coast, and that there is a considerable extent of shore 
 where a landing is at all times impracticable. It may 
 be safely affirmed that if anyone but the Duke of 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 "Wellington had stated that there was any shore in the 
 world on which a body of troops could be landed 'at 
 any time of the tide, with any wind, and in any 
 weather,' the statement would have been deemed un- 
 deserving of comment. The assertion passed, how- 
 ever, unnoticed at the time, and the entire letter was 
 quoted as an unanswerable proof that the country was 
 in danger. To have ventured on criticism or doubt 
 would have only invited the accusation of want of 
 patriotism." 
 
 It may here be remarked, parenthetically, that 
 panic, and a ready credulity and alacrity in accept- 
 ing and entertaining it, are always regarded in 
 this country as evidences of patriotism. No slight 
 degree of moral courage is wanted in either soldier or 
 civilian to argue that his countrymen, although the 
 bravest race in the world, are also what Americans 
 call "the scariest." It needs a large acquaintance 
 with, and a protracted sojourn in, foreign countries 
 outside of Europe to teach an Englishman what is 
 thought of this country by strangers, who seldom 
 regard it with friendly eyes. We are so fond of 
 believing that some other nation is preparing to invade 
 us — that gun for gun we are no match at sea for 
 France — that something has happened, or is about to 
 happen, which fundamentally alters our position, and 
 leaves us comparatively at the mercy of some hypo- 
 thetical foe, that panic-mongers have always had, and 
 always will have, a glorious time of it in our midst. 
 Perhaps no speech has made a profounder sensation 
 during Her Majesty's reign than that delivered by 
 Lord Lyndhurst in the House of Lords on the 
 5th of July, 1859. It was received with a;pplause so 
 rapturous as to astonish men familiar with the usually 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 quiet atmosphere in which it was spoken. The im- 
 pressive delivery and great age of Lord Ljmdhurst 
 lent as much weight to his words as attached to the not 
 dissimilar utterance of Lord Chatham, when he sank a 
 hundred years since upon the floor of that House in 
 which his voice was never again to be heard. Com- 
 menting upon Lord Lyndhurst's mighty effort, the 
 " Quarterly Eeview " of July, 1859, remarks : — 
 
 "No nobler speech was probably ever delivered, 
 even to a British House of Parliament, than that of 
 Lord Lyndhurst on the 5th of July — clear and truth- 
 ful in its statements, unanswerable in its logic, and 
 rising almost to sublimity in the prescience with which 
 he pointed out the danger of the state, and warned 
 the nation of the horrors of the abyss on the verge of 
 which it is standing. Unless every citizen will now 
 arm himself ; unless every servant of the state will 
 apply his whole energies to see how the danger may 
 best be met; unless every statesman will sink all 
 minor differences and apply his whole power to pre- 
 pare for the great struggle, it may happen that the 
 last spark of liberty that exists in Europe may be 
 trodden out, and the British name be lost from among 
 the great nations of the earth, in a catastrophe such as 
 has not appalled the world since jthe downfall of the 
 Eoman Empire." 
 
 These Tyords, set on fire by Lord Lyndhurst's torch, 
 have the true panic ring, and, strange as it may seem, 
 words like them will always be popular in this 
 country. The author or object of Mr. Cobden's first 
 panic died an exile at Claremont ; the author or 
 object of the second and third died an exile at 
 Chislehurst. It may further be remarked, that in 
 1870 — 71, the French fleet, of which for forty years 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 the terrors have been brandished in our faces, was 
 absolutely powerless to effect the least diversion in 
 favour of the sinking French army, even against a 
 nation so weak at sea as Grermany. No one ventured 
 in 1859 to criticise the following alarmist words of our 
 " old man eloquent " who had never seen war : — 
 
 " I know, my Lords, from information I have re- 
 ceived, and the accuracy of which I do not doubt, that 
 the French are at this moment building steamers each 
 of which is constructed to carry 3,500 men, with all 
 the necessary stores and appliances." 
 
 If by " necessary stores and appliances" were meant 
 a week's ammunition for 2,500 muskets, the tentes 
 d^airis, without which no French regiment moves, the 
 commissariat waggons and supplies necessary to feed 
 2,500 men, say for forty-eight hours, and the field 
 artillery and horses proportionate to that amount of 
 infantry, each of Lord Lyndhurst's imaginary French 
 steamers must have been a Grreat Eastern. 
 
 Here, then, we have a civilian who, when dogma- 
 tizing about war and invasion, of which he has had no 
 practical experience, finds his words accepted with- 
 out a demur from any practical soldier, because they 
 harmonize with what is unhappily the prevailing 
 temper of this nation. Not such is the view taken of 
 the Anglo-Saxon race by foreign soldiers who have 
 seen war on the grandest scale, and passed many years 
 in this country. Here are the words of Greneral Richard 
 Taylor, the son of Zachary Taylor, who was elected 
 President of the United States in 1849 *: — 
 
 " The breed to which these whites belong has for 
 
 * "Destruction and Eeconstruction:" by General Eichard Taylor. 
 Blackwood. 1879. 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 eight centuries been master of the earth wherever it 
 planted its foot. A handful of them conquered and 
 holds in subjection the crowded millions of Hindoostan. 
 Another and smaller section bridles the fierce Kaffir 
 tribes of South A:frica. Pla,ce but a "score of them on 
 the middle course of the Congo, and they will rule 
 until they are exterminated." 
 
 During these eight centuries, there have again and 
 again been opportunities for a French force to land in 
 these islands under circumstances far more favourable 
 to the invaders than any that one or a dozen Channel 
 Tunnels could place them in possession of ; but with 
 two insignificant exceptions no such foolhardy attempt 
 has ever been made by our neighbours since the 
 Norman Conquest. Upon February 22, 1797, a French 
 force landed about 2^ miles to the west of Fishguard, 
 in Pembrokeshire. The following extract is from 
 " Black's Guide to Wales : "— 
 
 " The invading force consisted of 1,400 men, 600 
 of whom were regular soldiers, while 800 were crimi- 
 nals liberated from French prisons. They effected a 
 landing, and after a night devoted to plunder and 
 intoxication, they surrendered to a few militia and 
 volunteers, not half their own number, hastily brought 
 together under the command of Lord Cawdor. It is 
 commonly added, that the invaders were panic struck 
 on seeing a number of Welsh women in their beaver 
 hats and red whittles, ranged on the summits of the 
 adjacent hills. Fear transformed these women into 
 formidable reserves of military, to contend with whom 
 appeared hopeless ; and accordingly the French com- 
 mander sent in a flag of truce, and agreed to an un- 
 conditional surrender." 
 
 On August 22, 1798, a French force, 1100 strong. 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 landed, under General Humbert, at Killala, in Mayo. 
 Lord Comwallis, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, ad- 
 vanced to meet them. The sister island was in almost 
 open rebellion ; and although the French were accom- 
 panied by three Irish rebels, Matthew Tone, Bar- 
 tholomew Teeling' and Sullivan, and were joined by 
 other Irish insurgents after landing, liot a single 
 Frenchman escaped death or capture. "Some," ac- 
 cording to "Ross's Memoirs of Lord Cornwallis," 
 "were killed in action, 96 officers and 746 rank and 
 file surrendered at Ballynamuck, and the remainder 
 were captured at Killala and other places." 
 
 Despite these two abortive and ludicrous attempts 
 at invasion, Mr. Bright is held up to military con- 
 tumely for hazarding the opinion that with 35 millions 
 of inhabitants in Great Britain and Ireland, of whom 
 8 millions are grown males, it would surely not be 
 diflBcult to defend a hole in the earth rather more than 
 20 feet wide. No one thought of sneering at Lord 
 Lyndhurst as an ignorant and presumptuous civilian, 
 when, nearly a quarter of a century since, he told his 
 fellow countrymen that they were "standing uncon- 
 sciously on the thin crust of a volcano which was about 
 to burst under their feet." Many similar speeches 
 have since then been delivered in both Houses of Par- 
 liament, and no amount of falsified prophecies and of 
 warnings, which events have shown to be utterly with- 
 out foundation, will probably preserve us from the 
 delivery of many more utterances of a like kind in 
 
 future. 
 
 In the meantime, it cannot be out of place to remind 
 Englishmen that the landing of a large force of armed 
 men upon a hostile coast is, without any exception, 
 the most difficult and dangerous operation of war. 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 Landsmen who have crossed the Channel from 
 Cherbourg and Brest— the only two western ports 
 at which, according to Lord Clarence Paget, large 
 masses of French troops could be embarked — ^wotJd, 
 even in 'calm weather^ have 'little stomach for fighting 
 when they had been for a dozen hours at sea. The 
 French are "execrable sailors, and the " imexpected 
 flotillas," from which the invaders are to descend 
 upon our shores, would inevitably fail in their object, 
 unless, in addition to a perfectly still sea, at least 
 forty-eight hours of total immunity from attack or 
 disturbance were insured to the men on board of 
 them. It would be well if the experience gained 
 from past history were turned to some account in 
 considering this question. Many officers are living 
 who witnessed the unopposed landing of English and 
 Ftench troops in Eupatoria Bay, which commenced 
 on the 14th of September, 1854. They will, therefore, 
 be able to pronounce upon the correctness of the 
 following description from Mr. Kinglake's " Invasion 
 of the Crimea : " — 
 
 " Unless a man has stood in the admiring crowd 
 which gathers to see the process of landing one horse 
 upon an open sea-shore : and unless while carrying in 
 his mind the labour and energy brought to bear upon 
 this single object, he can imagine the same toil gone 
 through again and again, and yet again, till it has 
 been repeated many hundred times upon a mile and 
 a-half of beach, he will hardly know what work nfiust 
 be done before a general can report to his government 
 that he has landed upon an open coast with 1,000 
 cavalry and 60 guns ready for the field. By labour, 
 never once intermitted (except when darkness, or the 
 state of the sea forbade it), and continued from the 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 morning of the 14th until the evening of the 18th, the 
 whole of the English land force was safely landed 
 upon the enemy's coast. The result was, that under 
 favourable circumstances of weather, and with the 
 advantage of encountering no opposition, an English 
 force of some 26,000 infantry and artillerymen, with 
 1,000 cavalry and 60 guns, had been landed in the 
 course of five September days." 
 
 Take another case on the other side of the globe. 
 War having broken out in 1846, between the United 
 States and Mexico, it was resolved to land a strong 
 column of American troops at Vera Cruz, and after 
 reducing the formidable castle of St. Juan de Ulua to 
 march upon the Mexican capital. The following ex- 
 tract is from the "Life of Greneral Winfield Scott" : — 
 " Great pains had been taken to procure information, 
 and Greneral Scott was engaged for several weeks in 
 making the necessary preparations. A corps of sappers 
 and miners, mountain howitzer and rocket batteries, 
 heavy ordnance, large quantities of missiles and 
 ammunition transport vessels, bomb-ketches, and surf- 
 boats to land the troops, were ordered to be organized 
 and despatched to the Grulf of Mexico without delay. 
 The troops were ordered to rendezvous at the island of 
 Lobos, lying just off the Mexican coast. It was late 
 in the February of 1847 before the troops reached 
 Lobos, and just before nightfall on the 5th of March 
 the whole fleet bore dovm into the roadstead of Vera 
 Cruz, blocking up the bay with a dense forest of masts 
 and spars. Careful reconnaissances of the coast were 
 'then made, and on the 9th of March the debarkation 
 was ordered to commence." 
 
 It will thus be seen that Greneral Scott found it 
 necessary to rendezvous at an island off the coast, to 
 lie there for nine or ten days, to make reconnaissances 
 
( 16 .) 
 
 from- the sea for five more days, and to employ an 
 enormous fleet. Such being the conditions a,ntece- 
 dent to landing 10,000 men without opposition, the 
 American Civil "War affords countless examples of the 
 almost insurmountable difficulties of landing in face of 
 opposition. It is to be regretted that, in addition to 
 visiting Greneral Lee's camp in Virginia, Lord Wolseley 
 had not an opportunity of seeing how flimsy were the 
 earthworks which enabled Fort Fisher, at the mouth 
 of the river leading to Wilmington, in North Carolina, 
 and Charleston, in South Carolina, to hold out for 
 nearly four years against repeated and most formidable 
 attacks. Upon many spots of that exposed coast, 
 miles upon miles of sandy tract lie open to descent, 
 and the Confederates had no ships to send to sea. 
 Nevertheless, with a battery or two of field artillery, 
 which reserved its fire until the invaders' boats were 
 close ashore, General Hoke, and other Confederate com- 
 manders, had no sort of difficulty in preventing a land- 
 ing, or in driving the Federals back to their boats if 
 ever they got ashore. When, at the end of 1864, 
 ''an armada, far more formidable than its namesake 
 that menaced the coast of England in 1588, took up 
 its position before Fort Fisher," it would have 
 astonished men inexperienced in war to see what an 
 amazing effort was' needed before it was deemed 
 possible by G-eneral Grant, who ordered the expedi- 
 tion, to land 5,000 men at a point where their de- 
 barkation was sure to be opposed. Suffice to say, that 
 a fleet of considerably more than 100 vessels was 
 arrayed for weeks off the coast of North Carolina. 
 To those, in fact, who have ever seen even one regi- 
 ment of soldiers huddled together on board ship for 
 half-a-dozen hours at sea, it would appear as ridiculous 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 to prate of, " unexpected flotillas" landing 50,000 men 
 in a night upon Pevensey Beach or in Pegwell Bay as 
 of despatching an aerial army in balloons to capture 
 London. 
 
 Happily nature has prescribed conditions, which for 
 eight centuries have made these islands practically 
 inaccessible to an invader. Will the creation of a 
 Tunnel under the Channel expose us to any risks 
 which do not exist already? On the other hand, 
 signs abound on all sides, presaging that our commerce 
 is slowly but surely declining. In the " Recollections 
 of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers," we are told that 
 Edmund Burke once remarked to Mrs. Crewe, ' ' England 
 is a moon shone upon by her neighbours across the 
 Channel. France has all things within herself, aind 
 possesses the power of recovering from the severest 
 blows. England is an artificial country: take away 
 her commerce, and what has she?" * Fresh fields must, 
 in short, be open to our trade, or actum est de .RepuMicd. 
 
 It is pretended, indeed, that hostilities often break 
 put suddenly without any formal declaration of war 
 being made by the country commencing them. A 
 paper, said to have been compiled by order of the 
 present Grovernment, and much dwelt upon by the 
 Duke of Cambridge, gives more than 100 instances in 
 which this anomaly has taken place. In this con- 
 nection it may not be without interest to quote the 
 
 * In the number of "Harper's Magazine" which, appeared last 
 December, Mr. Thomas W. Knox tells us that, ' ' In its commerce with 
 the United States, Havre holds the second place among European 
 ports, Liverpool being the first ; nor is it improbable that Havre 
 will soon surpass the great mart on the Mersey in its American 
 trade." The statistics of the traffic carried on these last ten years 
 by Antwerp and Bremen show as marked an advance as those of 
 every great English port, with one stationary exception, show a 
 -marked decline. - 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 following questions and answers from H.RiH.'s 
 evidence : — 
 
 Question (Lord Aberdare) : "I think your Eoyal Highness has 
 admitted that, although in very many instances acts of war have been 
 committed before war had been actually proclaimed, that has never 
 happened until relations between the two countries had become 
 extremely strained ? " 
 
 ^raiwer (Duke of Cambridge) : "Yes." 
 
 Question: "That alone would constitute a warning which any 
 prudent nation would, I presume, use for the purpose of seeing that 
 its defences, especially that at which the most immediate danger 
 threatened, were in order ?" . _ 
 
 Answer: " But it is a very bad moment to do it when relations 
 are strained, because it almost assumes that you think war will 
 come." 
 
 Question : " That, no doubt, would be the result of an overt act ; 
 but surely it would not apply to seeing that aU. the means and 
 appliances for obstructing or destroying the Tunnel were ready for 
 immediate use ?" 
 
 Answer: " I think London and aU parts of England would be 
 very much surprised, when relations are delicate, to read in the 
 morning papers that these things were being tested." 
 
 Now, without pausing to notice, that in these three 
 answers H.R.H. twice changes his ground, and alto- 
 gether abandons his original position, that, even at the 
 close of the nineteenth century, hostilities might be 
 suddenly commenced by the French without declara- 
 tion of war, it would beyond all question be far more 
 surprising to London and the rest of England to learn 
 from the newspapers that no preparations had been 
 made for seeing that the Tunnel could be instantly 
 destroyed, when war was at any moment possible. 
 
 •The truth is, that in all calculations of this kind 
 time is always on the side of the defence. " You say," 
 Avrote Sir William Molesworth to the Editor of the 
 "Spectator," on January 17, 1848, "that the next 
 attack on England will probably be without notice ; 
 that 5,000 Frenchmen might inflict disgrace on some 
 defenceless post ; that even 500 might inflict indelible 
 disgrace on . the empire at , Osborne House. Good 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 Grod ! Can it be possible, that you, whom I ranked 
 so high among the public instructors of this nation— 
 that you consider the French to be ruffians, Pindarees, 
 freebooters — that you believe it necessary to keep 
 constant watch and ward against them, as our Saxon 
 forefathers did against the Danes and the Northmen, 
 lest they should burn our seaport towns, plunder our 
 coasts, and put our Queen to ransom." 
 
 The mischief of permitting our neighbours across 
 the Channel to think that Englishmen of the highest 
 rank regard them as pirates and freebooters is twofold. 
 In the first place, it inclines each Frenchman to ex- 
 claim, with Lady Teazle, "I won't be suspected with- 
 out cause ;" and, secondly, it suggests that "suspicion 
 always haunts the guilty breast." There are many 
 reasons why our neighbours have more reason to fear 
 a Channel Tunnel than we have. England has twice 
 taken and long held French towns — Calais and 
 Dunkirk to wit — ^while France has never owned a 
 foot of English soil since the Conquest. Talk of 
 "imexpected flotillas," capable of throwing masses 
 of armed men upon a defenceless coast; and what 
 resources have the French for such an attempt as 
 compared with ourselves ? A sudden descent of 
 Englishmen thrown ashore upon the sandy dunes near 
 Calais would be far more likely to succeed by reason 
 of our immense superiority at sea, than a similar 
 enterprise undertaken by Frenchmen. Yet no word 
 of panic has ever been spoken against the Channel 
 Tunnel by the quick-sighted nation, which must 
 naturally feel that one of the inevitable results of its 
 construction will be to enable England to act on the 
 Continent as a land power. If France were engaged 
 in a death-grapple, for instance, with Germany or 
 
 b2 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 Russia, an English army of 30,000 men, holding the 
 French end of the Tunnel, and threatening the whole 
 of Northern France, would he of ineffable assistance 
 to France's enemy. "With what feelings, then, must 
 our lively neighbours contemplate the terrors which 
 the yery name of a Channel Tunnel awakens in our 
 most illustrious English soldiers ? 
 
 In 1847 Ralph, "Waldo Emerson concluded a speech 
 at the Manchester Athenseum with words of singular 
 significance. "I feel," he said, " with regard to this 
 aged England, with the possessions, honours, trophies, 
 and also with the infirmities of a thousand years 
 gathering around her, irretrievably committed as she 
 is to many old customs which cannot be suddenly 
 changed, pressed upon by the transitions of trade, 
 by new fabrics, arts, machines and competitions — 1 
 see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering 
 that she has seen dark days before — ^indeed, with a 
 kiiid of instinct that in storm of battle and in gloom she 
 has a secret vigour and a pulse like a cannon. I see 
 lier in her old age, not decrepit but young, arid still 
 daring to believe in her power of endurance and 
 expansion. Seeing this I say. All hail ! mother of heroes! 
 with strength still equal to the time, still wise to enter- 
 tain and swift to execute the policy which the mind 
 and heart of mankind require at the present hour. If 
 it be not so, if the courage of England should fail, 1 
 will go back to Massachusetts and say to my own 
 countrymen : the old race are all gone, and the elasticity 
 and hope of mankind must henceforth remain on the 
 Alleghany ranges, or nowhere." 
 
 For many hundreds of years, and up to the close of 
 the great wars in 1815, conflicts, more or less bloody, 
 have either been, ending or beginning within every 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 generation of men between France and England. 
 These wars have settled no principle, and to a small 
 extent only have they affected national boundaries. 
 Their effect has been for long periods to grind the 
 common people of both comitries down into the very 
 dust. At this day, we, in the United Kingdom, should 
 have neither customs nor excise to pay were it not for 
 the great debt accumulated by reason of such wars. 
 This country, in fact, would be one great free port and 
 city, the cheapest in the world, and, as such, all who 
 work would soon find their whole social state uplifted 
 by the abundance and peace of such a grand revolution. 
 Amid centuries of cloud and storm two sunny spots 
 of peace appear in the history of France and England. 
 The one — ^the happy three years following the Treaty 
 of Amity and Commerce, made by William Pitt, in 
 1786. The second — the no Jess happy twenty-one 
 years following the Treaty of Amity and Commerce 
 made by Richard Cobden. In neither period was 
 there a whisper of war in France or in England. It 
 is for the people of our country to say, whether there 
 shall be — 
 
 " Peace ok War with France ?" 
 
Mpeecti of 
 
 The Right Hon. JOM BEIGHT, M.P., 
 
 AT 
 
 Biie,:M:iisrc3-s:-AuiN^, 
 
 June 15th, 1883. 
 
 Mr. BEIGtHT, who on rising was very cordially received, 
 said : Mr. Mayor and gentlemen, — I received this address, as I 
 hope it becomes me, with the thankfulness that must necessarily 
 be excited in the mind of anyone to whom an attention of this 
 kind is offered, especially by a municipal corporation, if not old, 
 yet renowned amongst the corporations of this country. I can 
 only hope that the atmosphere of commendation and praise 
 in which I have been living during this week may not impair 
 the simplicity and the moderation of character which I have 
 always — perhaps not always successfully — endeavoured to pre- 
 serve. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) I observe in this address 
 one paragraph ,to which perhaps I may be allowed to give 
 rather special attention. It is the paragraph which says : " As 
 the governing body of a great commercial town we cannot, 
 however, refrain from especially alluding to your fervent de- 
 votion to the interests of peace and goodwill among the great 
 family of nations." (Loud applause.) 
 
 We have, from the course of policy pursued by our forefathers 
 in recent generations, become allied to portions of the earth, 
 territories, in almost every part of the globe. There can be, 
 therefore, hardly anything more necessary than that we should, 
 with regard to our necessarily extensive foreign affairs, see what 
 it is our duty to do, and endeavour if possible to discover what 
 is the wise course for a great nation. 
 
 At this moment there are two questions which strike me as of 
 some importance in connection with this view. We are nearest 
 a country of large population, of great renown — a population 
 governed now, not under the form of Grovernment under which 
 
 c2 
 
( 24 ).. 
 
 we live — and a country and a people with whicli in past times 
 we have been not incessantly but very often engaged in. san^' 
 guinary strife : I allude to our neighbour, France. At this 
 moment there are two questions which are being discussed, in 
 this country, and which refer to that country,' on which, if you 
 will permit me, I should like to say a few words. 
 
 Xhe first to which I allude is the question of the Suez Canal. 
 You have seen from the newspapers that within the last two or 
 three weeks there have been meetings in London of shipowners, 
 and others, some no doubt speculators, men of enterprise anxious^ 
 to engage ia something new, something great, and, as they hope, 
 something, doubtless, profitable. Now they have appointed a 
 deputation to our guest of last night, Lord Gfranville, and have, 
 discussed this question with him. They have stated that the 
 traffic of the Canal is great beyond all expectations, which is 
 not unreasonable, seeing that the intention was to prevent the_ 
 Canal being made; that the delay in the transit of ships is 
 increasing and very inconvenient, and that the cost of the dues 
 which are exacted by the Company are high, and, as they allege, 
 excessive. Now they have begun lately to make angry complaints 
 upon these poiats. 
 
 As to the traffic men are astonished now at the magnitude to, 
 which it has attained. I venture to foretell that 10 or 20 years 
 hence men will find that the traffic now was but in its infancy. 
 It is impossible to say to what magnitude that traffic may attain 
 within not a great number of years. If you look at the map 
 you will see to what parts of the world it goes — India, China, 
 Japan and Australia. Half the world must come backwards 
 and forwards through that Canal. It is impossible to say what 
 it vkUI grow to, and nothing can be more reasonable than to say 
 that the Canal, as at present existing, is not sufficient — and will 
 not be sufficient — and that it must be made much wider or a 
 new Canal must be made. 
 
 Now these complaints have become much more urgent since 
 the occupation of Egypt by English troops. No doubt these 
 gentlemen in London thought, " Now we have got hold of the 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 country we do not choose to pay 20 per cent, to M. Lesseps'- 
 Oanal, we will have a Canal all to ourselves, and we will he. 
 masters of our own transit hetween this country and our great 
 Indian Empire." Let us first look a little hack and see what 
 has heen done. M. Lesseps proposed to make this Canal. He 
 ofEered to the people of this country their share of the providing 
 of the capital that would be needed. In this country the pro- 
 position was received with considerable favour, and, I believe, 
 generally — as was only rational — the Chambers of Commerce 
 were in favour of the proposed scheme. 
 
 All at once, not a great statesman, in my opinion, but a 
 powerful Minister, put his foot down upon this scheme, con- 
 demned, denounced it, preferred that we should continually go 
 round with our ships the other way rather than anybody else 
 should get up a nearer road ; and the Chambers of Commerce, 
 with a humility and a submission pitiable to remember, shut 
 their mouths, and, I suppose, not a five pound note probably, 
 was contributed to the capital of the Canal from this country. 
 What was the result ? It was thrown necessarily into the hands 
 of France, and the French people felt that the scheme being 
 partly suffocated by the English Miuister's opposition, that it 
 became then the more necessary to make strenuous efforts to 
 make the Canal succeed. They did make those efforts, the Canal 
 was made, and it is an enormous and admitted success ; and to 
 no country more a success than this, for I suppose at least three- 
 fourths of the vessels passing to and fro through the Canal are 
 in the possession of England and English shipowners. 
 
 Now, then, what is this change which has taken place ? We— 
 I do not say I, but we— the English nation, the English Govern- 
 ment, the EngHsh press, they say so essential is the Canal to our 
 interest that we are ready, if need be, to fight the whole world to 
 keep it open. We who discouraged it — who would, if we could, 
 have prevented it being made — now we are enthusiastic and 
 resolved in its defence. There is no amount of millions of 
 money or thousands of lives which, accordiag to the tone of the 
 press and many public men in this country, we should not be 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 ready to spend in order to keep open this water-way to India. 
 And, in fact, as yon know, within the last twelve months, -we 
 have been at actual war in Egypt simply on the suspicion — a 
 suspicion, in my opinion, unfounded and false — ^that the Canal 
 has been in danger. (Cheers.) However, on that suspicion there 
 has been war, and deplorable consequences have ensued, and at 
 this moment the troops of England are said to be keeping the 
 peace in Egypt, and endeavouring to sustain upon the throne of 
 Egypt a ruler who, if our newspaper correspondents are to be 
 trusted, is not popular ; arnd if our troops came away he would 
 be obliged to come with them. (Laughter.) Now, on the 
 question of the new Canal, if there is to be a new Canal, one of 
 two things — we must either act with France or act against 
 France. I should say not against, but with. (Applause.) 
 
 The policy of the last year in Egypt — ^the English policy — 
 as was inevitable, created great irritation in the neighbouring 
 country, and if, after the course they have taken in regard to 
 this Canal, their enterprise, their outlay of capital, their great 
 success — if we are to say, now, having got possession of this 
 country, we wiU have a Canal of our own, we will have no 
 further connection with M. Lesseps' Canal — then I think a 
 strain would be put upon the cordial friendship that now for so 
 many years has existed between the two countries, which would 
 be at least highly undesirable, if it would not be highly 
 dangerous. (Cheers.) 
 
 The Grovemment and the Foreign Office have heen appealed 
 to. I don't think I cam doubt what will be the course that 
 Lord Granville and his colleagues will take. (Hear.) I am 
 quite sure he wiU endeavour by all the means in his power to do 
 that — to support that — only, which is judicious — judicious for 
 all nations, and friendly and considerate to France — (hear, hear) 
 — and wiE not allow the shipowners, and the speculators, and the 
 men of great enterprise for great works, to dictate what shall be 
 the course of the Government with regard to the matter. He 
 will know that great national interests are at stake, and the 
 concord between two great nations. All the nations of Europe 
 have an interest in this question. 
 
C 27 ) ■ 
 
 A little after the Canal was opened M. Lesseps was very 
 anxious that It should be taken out of his hands, and out of the 
 hands of the French proprietors, not to be placed in our hands, 
 but to be placed in some kind of International Commission — 
 (hear, hear) — by whom it should be managed, by whom, if 
 necessary, it should be widened and deepened, by whom every- 
 thing connected with it should be determined, and by whom it 
 should be made open for ever, a free passage for all the ships 
 of all the nations of the globe. (Applause.) 
 
 Sir Daniel Lange, I think, a gentleman who was in this 
 eoimtry at the time an agent of M. Lesseps, called upon me 
 more than once to discuss that question with me, and urged me 
 to say something in respect of it ; and I did at that time speak 
 of it with some earnestness to members of the Government. I 
 am not sure now — ^I cannot recollect accurately, and I have not 
 referred to any memoranda for the purpose of clearing my mind 
 — I will not say whether it was during the official term of Lord 
 Clarendon, who died in 1870, or whether it was afterwards 
 during Lord Granville's tenure of office — ^but I mentioned it to 
 several members of the Government. Either the difficulties ap- 
 peared so great, or, there was a certain indifference with regard 
 to it, that it did not seem likely to make any progress. But I 
 am boimd to say — ^it is not complimentary to my late colleagues, 
 it is not complimentary to BngHsh statesmen — but it seems to 
 me whenever the question of India comes up, English statesmen 
 lose their heads. (Applause and laughter.) 
 
 The Crimean War came out of an absolute and childish delu- 
 sion — with its half million of human lives sacrificed — that in 
 some way or other our possession of India and its safety were 
 involved in keeping Russia from any further encroachments 
 upon Turkey. (Cheers.) The Afghan War the other day, 
 under the late Government, was commenced by Lord Salisbury 
 and by Lord Lytton, under an apprehension, which now appears 
 perfectly insane and absurd beyond description, that any con- 
 nection between Eussia and the Afghan Ameer was likely to be 
 dangerous to India, and to bring the Russians close upon the 
 
^( 28 ) 
 
 northern frontier of that empire. And now this very deplorable 
 incident of last year comes from the same idea. The Canal — I 
 scarcely know how to descrihe what I mean — was to be defended 
 at all risks by those who had wished it should not be made, and 
 on the mere suspicion of injury to it, a great city is bombarded, 
 and a deplorable catastrophe takes place. 
 
 Now, I should wish men, if they conquered India and held 
 India, and tried to govern India well, they should endeavour 
 also to be rational in their views of its position. And as to the 
 dangers which I will not say surround — because they do not 
 surround — but as to the dangers which are suspected in connec- 
 tion with our relations with India, my own opinion is that there 
 is no country in the world that has the slightest interest or the 
 slightest disposition to interfere with the government of India 
 by England. (Cheers.) I believe liussia has no more idea of 
 crossing the frontier into the Indian Empire, than we in India 
 have of crossing the frontier and invading the Asiatic possessions 
 of Russia. (Cheers.) 
 
 Well, let us now, when this question of the Canal is on foot 
 and being discussed — let us, if we can, keep our heads cool and 
 be sober in considering it. (Hear, hear.) Let us give no sort 
 of sanction to anybody who thinks that it may be right, or 
 justifiable or profitable, or possible, to get into any difficulty 
 with France with regard to this matter. (Hear, hear.) Let us 
 regard France as our friend, and, as the French people wish to 
 be our friends — (applause) — let us go as far as it is possible to 
 go— and I believe it is entirely possible — hand in hand with the 
 Government and people of that country in settling this question ; 
 very small question indeed if we are all in good and right 
 temper about it — (hear, hear) — but a very serious question if 
 we proceed upon the lines which I am afraid some are anxious 
 to pursue. 
 
 There is another question with regard to France upon which, 
 if you wOl permit me, I should like to say a few words — (hear, 
 hear) — that is, with regard to the magnificent and most in- 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 teresting project of making a Submarine Tunnel between that 
 country and England, (Hear, hear.) 
 
 Fourteen years ago, iu the year 1869, 1 was in the office now 
 filled^ — and I must say filled with a great deal more capacity for 
 its work than I possessed — ^by my right honourable colleague, 
 Mr. Chamberlain. (Loud applause.) I was then President of 
 the Board of Trade, and I received a deputation from a number 
 of gentlemen, amongst whom I think was Lord Eichard 
 GrosvOnor, which came to represent to me the reasonableness 
 of a scheme for making a Tunnel under the Channel. But at 
 that time they were anxious — as now I believe they are not — 
 to ascertain if the Q-ovemment would grant them a subvention, or 
 guarantee them some rate of interest. I don't recollect the exact 
 proposition, but it was that the Grovernment in some pecuniary 
 shape should give assistance to this project. I brought it before 
 my colleagues in the Cabinet, and the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer at that time — who was Mr. Lowe, the present Lord 
 Sherbrooke — took the view, which was very likely to be taken 
 by a Chancellor of the Exchequer, that it was rather a wild 
 proposition, and one to which — at that time, at any rate — ^the 
 Government would pay no attention. And therefore it was 
 dismissed. But at that time, although many thought it was a 
 wild proposition that might not be carried out, stUI nobody — no 
 one living, I believe — made the slighest objection to it upon the 
 grounds upon which now objections are raised against it. 
 
 I am not in a position to express a confident opinion on 
 a matter of this kind. I cannot tell whether, in an engi- 
 neering point of view, the project is capable of completion : 
 but as many eminent engineers — Sir John Hawkshaw for 
 instance. Sir Frederick Bramwell, for instance, Mr. Brunlees, 
 and I am not sure whether the vast majority of the engineering 
 opinion of this country would not be in favour of the possibility 
 of making the Tunnel, and in fact, of its being very easily and 
 certainly made— well, then, I am willing to consent to and to 
 accept that opinion. (Hear, hear.) Beyond that there comes 
 the question of capital. It is not very likely that I should be 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 an investor in the Tunnel. But there are many men who 
 ■would be, and a few millions — five or six jnUlions, three or four 
 millions, whatever it may be — would easily be raised in the City 
 of London for a project like this ; and if investors are willing 
 to put their money in it, it would be presumption in me to offer 
 any objection to their doing so. (Laughter.) Well,, then, I 
 assume the engineer question is settled and the capital question 
 is settled. Then we are assailed — well, not assailed — but we 
 have' before us various opinions as to the utUity of the Tunnel. 
 As a matter of traffic for men and goods, there cannot possibly 
 be, I think, differing opinions. (Hear, hear.) There are people 
 probably very fond of going to sea — (laughter) — although it is a 
 short enjoyment of an hour-and-a-half in crossing the Channel. 
 There are far more people who don't like going to sea — and I 
 almost think that, of all the agonising sights that have ever met 
 my eye, the worst is that which I have seen now and then, in 
 crossing the Channel, when a deathly pallor seemed to have 
 seized the countenances of all on board. (Laughter.) Then 
 we are met by an objection, to my mind, of the most extra- 
 ordinary kind that ever was offered to any great scheme of 
 hunian advancement. It is, that by making this Tunnel we 
 shall be placing our national independence in serious peril. 
 They say that England is an island. 
 
 Well, Grreat Britain is an island — I believe that has been 
 admitted for centuries. (Laughter.) But there is what they 
 call a silver streak, varying from, perhaps, twenty to one hundred 
 miles wide between France and the southern shores of Great 
 Britain. That is also quite true ; and they have an idea that that 
 silver streak has been the reason why we have always b^en at 
 peace, the real fact being, as is known to those who have not 
 forgotten their history, that until the last fifty years we have 
 nearly always been at war. This island was rendered, in their 
 sense, much less an island by the invention of steam navigation^ 
 I was reading the other day a manuscript giving a- biographical 
 account of an old friend of mine who died a few years ago in 
 the neighbourhood of Manchester — ^Mr. J. 0. Dyer, a very remark- 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 able" man, an American, by birth, living, I suppose, for half a 
 
 century in this country. I think he was about ninety -when he 
 
 died. In this account he describes his coming over from 
 
 America. I am not quite sure whether it was his final coming 
 
 over to settle here, but he came over here for the purpose of 
 
 disposing, if he could, of some American inventions. Even in 
 
 that day, which was about 1814, the Americans were great in 
 
 invention. At this day I generally ask an American who 
 
 comes to me — and a great many come — whether he has not 
 
 got a patent — (laughter) — and I have no doubt that after 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain's promised bUl is passed you will have to ask 
 
 the same question of Englishmen. (Laughter.) But Mr. Dyer 
 
 came over here, and one of the patents was for the establishing 
 
 of steam navigation. He had been intimate with Mr. Eulton, 
 
 who in the United States was the first promoter of that great 
 
 change, and Mr. Dyer came to the shipowners and various 
 
 people in London and tried to engage them to take up this 
 
 patent, and establish steamboats on the Thames and in the 
 
 Channel. He describes how entirely unsuccessful he was. He 
 
 could not get any of them to look at it. I do not know whether 
 
 any of them were afraid at the thought that the silver streak 
 
 would be crossed in one hour-and-a-half instead of being crossed 
 
 in three days, and sometimes a week. If you wiU go back seventy 
 
 years you will see that the adoption of the system of steam 
 
 navigation was, according to the idea of these terrified people, a 
 
 strange and dangerous change, because, instead of vessels 
 
 coming over by sail, being dependent entirely upon the windj 
 
 they would come over, whatever the gale, almost, and from 
 
 whatever quarter the wind might blow, in one hour-and-a-half 
 
 or two hours. Great ships with a thousand men on board ! 
 
 I could draw a picture — if we had not lived over it and 
 through it — I could draw a picture that would make your hair 
 stand on end at the terrors which we were about to encounter 
 by the establishment of steam navigation. (Laughter.) Steam 
 navigation has been established, and nothing has come of it 
 except enormous advantage to the Continent and to ourselves: 
 
( 32 ) 
 
 But you know that with steam navigation and with the ferry 
 that now plies hetween England and France, there are twenty — 
 fifty points on the coast at which a landing might he effected. 
 Tet for all that, during the last fifty or sixty years, whilst this 
 state of things has been growing every year more apparent j 
 there has heen a more complete peace between the two -countries 
 than at any former period of our history. And thanks to the 
 increasing commerce which, during the last twenty years, has 
 arisen between the people of the two countries, I venture to say 
 that there is nothing in our history at all approaching the cor- 
 diality of 'feeling which we have witnessed during this last 
 period. (Hear, hear.) 
 
 Now, recollect what this Tunnel is. I do not know what is 
 the width of this room, but I suppose it would not be much more 
 than half its width ; it might be something over twenty feet 
 wide. It is at least twenty miles long. A Tunnel a mile long 
 of that size looks a long Tunnel if you look at one end of it, 
 or pass through it in a railway train. But twenty miles ! You 
 can form no idea what it is, and yet there is a superstition — I 
 should have supposed it was necessary to have gone to Bedlam 
 to discover any man who could have entertained it — (loud 
 laughter) — there is a superstition that with 35,000,000 of per- 
 sons in Great Britain and Ireland, of whom 8,000,000 are grown 
 men, they could not defend a hole in the earth — (loud laughter) 
 — not much more than about twenty feet wide. Now, I don't 
 know what number of trains would pass in a day through that 
 Tunnel, but I should say — I thought — ^ten or twelve, but I saw 
 in some of the evidence given before the House of Lords and 
 Commons Committee the other day that — I think the calcula- 
 tion was that passenger trains and luggage trains, probably 
 twenty, would pass through the Tunnel in the course of the 
 day. 
 
 Now the people against whom I am contending go upon two 
 assumptions which I take the liberty absolutely to object to. 
 The one is, that the Trench nation is composed nationally, and in 
 regard to the action of their Q-overnment^eomposed of brigands 
 
( 33 ) 
 
 — ^laugMer) — not of honest men, not of men according to the 
 average of our political acquaintance and historical ac(juaint,- 
 ance, but men brigands of the worst and the most desperate 
 character, (Laughter.) And at the same time they assume 
 that the great English nation, which has its arm stretched all 
 over the globe, at home is a nation of imbeciles, (Laughter.) 
 We know that if these trains are passing to and fro — they must 
 be passing through, whether it be to Calais, whether it be to 
 Boulogne, wherever the Tunnel emerges on the French Coast — 
 there must be men of all nations passing .continually through 
 this Tunnel — Englishmen by hundreds every day, by thousands 
 every week and month ; and yet there is an idea in the minds 
 of some men that by some sudden, secret, undiscovered method 
 unty. the catastrophe is developed, like a great explosion — that 
 the French Grovernment could arrange a succession of great 
 trains, an army of soldiers, a vast collection of artillery — that 
 all these could be put into this Tunnel — (a laugh) — from the 
 French end of it, and although English people were passing 
 every hour — (a laugh) — and the telegraph was there — that might 
 be cut, that is true ; they say it might be cut — but the very 
 cutting of the telegraph would be a signal — (hear) — they say 
 that all this could be done, and nobody in England or at Dover 
 would know anything about it, and thus there might be an 
 invasion of this country through the Tunnel. 
 
 Well, I feel that it is not a thing to be argued against — the 
 thing is so incredible, and so monstrous — (hear, hear) — and so 
 impossible, and so beyond the reach of aU former imagination, 
 that it doesn't appear reasonable that one should attempt even 
 to, expose it and to contradict it. (Cheers.) Then, these ter- 
 rible foretellings come from great mihtary authorities. I wiU. 
 give you one special description of what may happen. I believe 
 it is the opinion of one of the highest military authorities in 
 this country. It is this — there will be war with France. I 
 suppose that is the first article in the creed of all the big soldiers. 
 (Laughter.) I suppose they read nothing but about wars with 
 France in the olden times, and they think it is the order of 
 
( 34 ) 
 
 nature that there should always be war with France. They are 
 very much astonished, as some people are astonished that 
 Vesuvius or Etna is quiet for a long time, and they think that 
 there must be very soon a terrible eruption between this country 
 and FrEtnce. Well, I don't say that a war with France is an 
 absolute imJ)ossibiIity, but I say that the man who constantly 
 dwells upon it, and endeavours to lead men to think that such a 
 thing is likely, is not a friend, I will not say to France, but he 
 is not a friend to his own country or to the world. (Applause.) 
 There will be a war with France — that is the beginning. I 
 will not ask you to disbelieve that, although I think it is 
 extremely unlikely. (Appkuse.) But this goes on, and the 
 next is that we are to be very badly beaten, that the English 
 flag is to be driven absolutely from the Channel, that then 
 we are to make a disastrous peace, very much like that which 
 France, in 1870, was obliged to make with Germany. In this 
 disastrous peace, what do you suppose is to be one of the con- 
 ditions ? That Dover, with the territory of a few miles — say 
 ten miles— round it, is to be surrendered in perpetuity to a 
 conquering French army, and that France wiU retaliate upon us 
 for our long retention of Calais by her future possession and 
 retention of Dover. (Laughter and applause.) 
 
 "Well, you can fancy probably what must be the condition of 
 mind of the great military authority who has this scheme iu his 
 head, and dreaming about it all night — ^it can only have come 
 from the land of disordered dreams. (Laughter and cheers.) 
 Then he says that when France gets possession of Dover and the 
 ten miles round it— which he supposes they can defend against 
 any attack from whatever remnant there is of the English forces 
 — then they are to bring over by train one hundred thousand 
 men — any number of men — there wiU be nobody to say them 
 nay, no gate to shut, and no force to contend with them — and 
 the French army may, at its leisure, and in the best manner 
 possible, make the journey by Tunnel, and arrive in this country, 
 with the satisfaction that England is in some way to be tributary 
 to France. 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 Now, that is not quite all the story, for another authority — 
 not less important than the first — has got another scheme, as I 
 saw in the newspapers a day or two ago. I am sorry we have 
 not got the evidence in exfenso, hecause I am quite sure if we 
 had the evidence before that committee fully the people in this 
 country would be able to form on a more complete basis an 
 accTU-ate view of this question which is before them. (Hear, 
 hear.) But this other authority says he does not think the 
 French would come over by the Tunnel — which is really very 
 comforting. (Loud laughter.) But he says they wiU come by 
 boats, and that they will seize this end of the Tunnel. (Laughter.) 
 "Well, if they can come by boats and seize this end of the Tunnel, 
 why don't they come over by boats before the Tunnel is made ? 
 (Laughter and applause.) It seems to me that during the last 
 fifty years there has been a constant increase in the number of 
 boats, and I see no objection whatever — except that the English 
 people may render it difficult — (laughter) — perhaps impossible. 
 (Renewed laughter and applause.) 
 
 Now this is the sort of argument — (loud laughter) — which 
 these anti-Tunnel gentlemen are offering to the sensible people 
 of this country. (Laughter.) I would advise you never to 
 take the opinion of high military authorities — (hear, hear) — 
 except on a question of what should be done when you are 
 .actually at war. (Hear, hear.) I am not at all certain — I 
 believe it possible and probable^that if we had had — if the 
 Grovernment had had — a civilian of commanding character and 
 capacity in the harbour of Alexandria on the 11th of July last 
 — (hear, hear) — there would have been no bombardment — (hear, 
 hear) — no burning of Alexandria — (hear, hear) — no battle up 
 the country, no slaughter of three or four thousand lives— 
 (hear, hear)^and then the calamity which followed — there 
 would have been nobody ennobled — (laughter) — and no pensions 
 granted. (Laughter and applause.) 
 
 But my view of the case is this : that if the Timnel were 
 made, in three months' time everybody would receive it as a 
 fact settledj the most commodious way of transport, and except 
 
( 36 ) 
 
 those who are always grumtling at railway directors— (laughter) 
 ■^there are a great many of them — I am not one — (laughter) — 
 other reasonable people would be grateful to the engineers who 
 designed, to the contractors who executed, the work, and to the 
 capitalists who invested their money in one of the most magni- 
 ficent undertakings that the world has ever seen; (Cheers.) 
 The military terror, I think, would be entirely allayed. I have 
 observed some writers ©f newspapers and some public speakers 
 who have not objected to the Tunnel at all, and have believed 
 all these alarms to be absolutely unfounded, who still have got 
 this notion into their heads, which shows the contempt they 
 have of the intellect of their countrymen — that if the Tunnel 
 were made and open it would be easy for these military autho- 
 rities, or for some gunpowder manufacturer, to tell the people 
 of England that their danger was tremendous, and that there- 
 fore it was necessary to spend millions in fortifying this hole 
 twenty feet wide — (laughter) — lest the French nation should 
 come by it ; and therefore we should be liable to a succession 
 of panics which would make our last position worse than the 
 first. (Laughter.) Well, we have heard of things of this sort 
 before. Tou heard some years ago of a great breakwater at 
 Cherbourg, behind which the French navy was to assemble with 
 a view to something dreadful to this country. After all, we 
 found out this was merely a sort of bogey, and I do not know 
 whether the Queen did not go over to Cherbourg to assist in 
 the celebration of the opening of this breakwater. (Hear.) If 
 you go to the Channel Islands, I think the Island of Aldemey, 
 you win find there an immense work which has been built at 
 the expenditure of your taxes, of the toil and sweat of our 
 labouring population, and where a million — I think about, if 
 mot over a mUlion — of money was expended. My friend 
 Mr. Milner Gibson, who knows a good deal about sea matters, 
 and most other matters of public interest, went over there to 
 examine all this. We opposed further grants of money in the 
 II0US6 of Commons, and finally the grants were abandoned. 
 The work, after having nearly A million spent upon it, was 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 never completed, and now the Government would be exceed- 
 ™gly glad if the whole thing could be carried at one lift by 
 fairies or devils to the bottom of the sea. (Applause.) 
 
 But we have had even a later exhibition of this kind of 
 terror in what you may call the Palmerston Forts down at Ports- 
 mouth. I believe, now, so far as I have been able to learn, nearly 
 all military men, as sensible men in that day, ridiculed the idea 
 of building these forts. I don't know the sum expended, but I 
 think it must have been ten or twelve millions. I can't say 
 accurately, but I know through the exertions of Mr. Gladstone, 
 at a time when I thought he ought to have quitted the Govern- 
 ment — by his exertions the sum originally intended to be ex- 
 pended by Lord Palmerston and his advisers was very much 
 reduced. Take another case. After the termination of the 
 American War there were proposals made in the House of 
 Commons, not for any expenditure that was named, but that 
 there should be some great system of defence between Canada 
 and the United States, and that was another instance of the 
 way in which we know that a great many men who ought to be 
 in Bedlam are out of it. I took the liberty of opposing that 
 scheme with such faculty as I possessed. I look back to it 
 always with great sorrow, for I remember that it was to oppose 
 that proposition that my dear and lamented friend Mr. Cobden 
 left his home in Sussex, and came up to London on one of the 
 most bitter days that the bitter month of March has ever fur- 
 nished to the suffering people of this country. He came up on 
 that day with the view of going to the House for the purpose 
 of speaking upon this monstrous proposition, and on that day 
 he received the chill which was to him the stroke of death. He 
 lived but a fortnight afterwards, and he has left us, and gives 
 us no further service except that which we may derive from the 
 contemplation of his character, and from the admiration^of the 
 great qualities which he displayed to his country. 
 
 Now then, what shall we say about it ? I don't know that I 
 have any thing more to say. I suppose arguments such as I have 
 used and illustrations would be of no use before a Parliamentary 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 Committee of the House of Lords and House of Commons. 
 The matter ought to he discussed loj the people. They are 
 ahout to have an opportunity of relieving thousands and in 
 course of time millions of our people from the trouble and agony 
 which they endure in passing the Channel. I would advise 
 thena to consider how much it is to the interest of humanity 
 that the nations should have free means of communication both 
 personal and by train. If we have for the last fifty years lived 
 on terms of amity with the French, why should we not live on 
 terms of amity with them, not for fifty years but for five cen- 
 turies to come. All that is possible. The people of France 
 have no more idea of, by a sudden inroad, a piratical brigand 
 assault, coming to this country with a view of assailing us, and 
 of subjugating this realm, than we in this room have an idea of 
 starting to-morrow for the purpose of a conquest of the city of 
 Paris. Let us take our own great affairs of this kind into our 
 own hands — (applause) ^not leave them in the hands of excited 
 military men — (hear, hear) — who seem as if some of them 
 thought nothing of the calamity of war, but who are willing at 
 every opportunity, I will not say to welcome its coming, but 
 at any rate to create needless apprehensions with regard to it. 
 
 My own impression is, that the. Tunnel, if it were made, 
 would be of enormous value to this country, as it would be of 
 great value to all Europe; but it would be of far greater 
 value to this country than it would to any other country, unless 
 perhaps it be to France. You would find, also, from the tJnited 
 States the traffic .that now comes here would only the more 
 come here, and would pass through the Tunnel on to the Con- 
 tinent ; for the Americans, after the experience of ten days on 
 the Atlantic, would, I think, generally be glad to be excused 
 even a few hours in the Channel. (Laughter.) So that on 
 the whole, Idoking at it as sensible men, assuming the engineers 
 are right, and it can be safely made and worked, and assuming 
 Jhere are men who will invest their capital in the undertaking, 
 I say every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom has 
 an interest in this Tuiinel being made ; and I hope the absurd, 
 
( 39 ) 
 
 monstrous, extraordinary, inoonoeivaUe suggestions of alarm 
 which are offered to us — and have been offered to this Com- 
 mittee — ^will be utterly disregarded and repudiated by the com- 
 mon sense of our countrymen. (Cheers.) 
 
 I thought that that paragraph in this complimentary and 
 most kind address was an opportunity of which I might avail 
 myself — (hear, hear) — to mate some observations on these two 
 questions. I do implore you — I don't ask you to adopt what 
 may be called extraordinary and abstract opinions on the ques- 
 tion of war — I ask you to agree with Lord Derby, who made 
 an observation before he left the previous Grovernment, which 
 ought never to be forgotten, that the greatest interest of Eng- 
 land is peace. (Applause.) If it had not been for the wars of 
 our predecessors, or the wars within two centuries of our time, 
 it is impossible to say — if the efforts of our statesmen had been 
 directed to an improvement of the internal condition of our 
 country — it is impossible to say how great would have been the 
 difference in the present position of the millions of the labouring 
 classes amongst us. It is for them I care more. They toil and 
 they sweat, they work from early mom till evening-tide. Their 
 reward — as far as our expenditure is compared with it — their 
 reward is generally but small, because, although they have many 
 of them votes, they have not the same power of impressing upon 
 the Grovernment their views as we have. I say, looking at their 
 condition, we are bound by all that is sacred, if it be possible, to 
 bring together the nations — especially of Europe and the nations 
 of the great American continent — into a firm, constant, enduring, 
 and blessed alliance with the people of our country. And it is 
 for the sake of this that I have made these observations, and I 
 trust that all that has been said here to-day, and what may be 
 said of the opinion here felt, and partly expressed, may not be 
 without some result upon the public opinion of the country. 
 (Cheers.) 
 
LONDON : 
 rniNTEI) BY C. p. ECVPOETH, BEEAM's BtmomOS, CHAlfCEET LAKE. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 arW9416 
 
 Suez canal & channel tunnel : 
 
 ,. 3 1924 031 443 025 
 olin,anx 
 
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