THE CHANNEL TUNNEL
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Financiers and others are boosting the construction of the Channel Tunnel by wishing to spend thirty to fifty mil- lions to help unemployment. Building tunnels may alleviate, but cannot cure, unemployment, nor can the money build up the railway finances. These do not pay for the obvious reason that the motor vehicle is fast ousting the steam engine, and the same within a short time may (and possibly will) apply to the Channel Tunnel (if it is ever built).
The motor and the aeroplane, collectively or individually, may entirely denude the railway of the great bulk of travelling public across the water and elsewhere. If all this money is available to aid unemployment, let us use it in widening our country roads, which before long will have to be done, and so help a very deserving industry, or, failing this, build landing places, aerodromes, and aeroplanes, so that we can fully utilize the great highway of the world, which is the air.—I am,
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