One hundred years ago
GENERAL Sir A. Clarke evidently thinks there is 'something' in the report of fortifications for London, for he writes a letter published in Monday's Times, entirely condemning any such scheme. He says, and no man had a better right to speak, that a scheme for field defences could be completely finished in three weeks, 'works of the kind which will meet all requirements having been actually built at Chatham under a month by a civil contractor'. He considers that to fortify London is to announce an intention to starve the Fleet, and abdicate the empire of the seas. We do not see that at all, but we do see, for reasons we have tried to give elsewhere, that such a project would be most unwise, and so unpopular as to endanger the Parliamentary acceptance of increased estimates. We have the greatest difficulty in believing that any idea of the kind has been so much as seriously discussed, and hope to discov- er that it has arisen from some surveys ordered by the Minister of War for a much more limited and defensible pur- pose. He certainly will not get masonry fortifications for London out of the House of Commons, if only because they could not be ready by the time when danger is most to be apprehended.
The Spectator, 9 February 1889
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