THE TUNNEL BETWEEN ENGLAND AND IRELAND- [To THR EDITOR OF
THE " SPECIITOR."1 SIR,—You advocate with great ability the construction of a. tunnel between Great Britain and Ireland, to make the two islands which are one politically also one physically. The advantages are so manifest to the United Kingdom, and to the whole Empire, that I cannot understand why the Imperial Government—which is now doing so much along right lines. —has taken no step in the matter. We willingly spent ten. millions sterling to unite our maritime provinces with Old Canada by the material bond of a railway; and when British Columbia demanded two or three times the amount, to build. another railway across the impenetrable rocky wildernesses. north of Lake Superior, uninhabited plains further west, and, then a wide sea of mountains, as its condition of union, we to the demand, though wise men asserted that we agree& to do the impossible. I may add that the Canadian Pacific- Railway has paid us, not in cash certainly, but in assets much, more indispensable to a nation. Similarly, the tunnel seems, to me even more indispensable, as a material bond between, the two islands where the title-deeds of the Empire are and where they must always be kept. May I be permitted to. point out a secondary argument in its favour P It may not be- so important to the Empire to bring closely together Canada.- and Britain, and for that matter the Old and the New' Worlds, as it is that England and Ireland should be made- really one, but it surely is important. A glance at a map. shows that the nearest points between the two are a port on the West Coast of Ireland, say Galway, and a port on the' East Coast of Newfoundland, say Green Bay. The distance- between these points is only 1,700 miles, that is,, three daysc steaming for a first-class Cunarder. Well, on our side, a. railway can be constructed in a few weeks to Green or Notre Dame Bay, by building 40 miles or so from the' most northerly station of the trans-insular line which, has just been built by Mr. Reid. Ten hoses would then take passengers and mails across Newfoundland to- Port-aux-Basques, and six hours more would take them. across Cabot Straits to Sydney, the terminus of the Canadian, Intereolonial Railway. As this route would cue the present ocean voyage from New "York in two, it is snre to. her adopted-) -whenever a great railway or steamship line takes it up, for an enormous proportion of passengers dread either the -tedium or the sickness of a long ocean voyage, and mails must go hy the quickest route. It is, however, needless to point out that a tunnel uniting England and Ireland would tielp it materially by providing on the West Coast of Ireland
he nearest British terminus.—I am, Sir, &c., G. M. G-RANT, Principal.
• Queen's University, Kingston, Ont., Canada, Sept. 9th.
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