There was also a very vehement diScussion the same clay
on the Channel Tunnel, Sir Frederick Bramwell doing all in his power to cover with ridicule those who have opposed it. But ho did not make much way. Sir William Armstrong quite tightly replied that any position which was one of natural ad- vantage for the British people, ought to be guarded with great jealousy, and that, no doubt, our insular position was an advan- tage of that kind. As this journal has always insisted, a Channel 'tunnel, whatever it failed to do, must increase the tendency ssf the British public to periodical panics,—a most mischievous and undesirable tendency. But over and above that, it is all but certain that the strong dislike of a popular British Govern- ment to interfere with thousands of vested interests, and to give an order which would sound cruel and wasteful, would prevent any order being given for the destruction, or partial destruc- tion, of the tunnel, at the only time when it could in all pro-
_ bability be given with good effect. To these arguments, neither Sir Frederick Bramwell nor any one else seems to us to have attempted a reply.
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