| Show TUNNEL TO CONNECT IRELAND WITH SCOTLAND from a staff correspondent of the fress london july 14 money to la ready and plans plain are laid for a tunnel that will make all tunnels dug duff hitherto seem imber insignificant and that incident will bring the united states and europe several hours nearer it Is be lieveld libed that it will begin et a new era for or ireland and ix will III advance belfast many plena in the scale ot of importance lt it is proposed to perform nil all of these wonders by drilling a hole live miles through the rock un do dr r tho the northern part jart of 0 the irish asca t through r ough which passengers could bo be whisked k by train and could thus travel from london to galway or queenstown Queens town without chit cars all that tho the plait walts waits tor for now Is n a gue duerant rant from the he british government of 0 3 per cent on the capital invested from tho the time that the tunnel la is in working order A MR big meeting was waa he held d the other day 7 in R committee room 0 the house ot of commons presided del over by the marquis of oc londonderry former lo 10 lord rd Liu lieutenant tenant of ireland lit in which t the he enterprise was okas boomed vigorously hy by lord rosebery the karl earl of oc spencer and many ri aj iother nother important personage nace A deputation was sent to the first lord of tho the treasury to talk persuasively to him about the 3 per cent part ot of the business and the government la in considering the th question if iho government guarantees the interest tho the preliminary walk will begin at on once ce and it la is expected that the turk tunnel lie will be completed in about ten years mrs irom from the unto time the first sod bod Is turned LORD VIEWS when the be time comes to turn that sod god abo roan to do it really ought to be ird in londonderry don derry whose powerful ln in fluence has been exerted for it ever since it t appeared ipp eared that the plan was ablo to him therefore I 1 applied for information on tho the subject a aIL though hough lords or high degree are not much given to granting ln interviews in angland town house I 1 in n a aristocratic ris I 1 socratic park lane one Is as prim grim find and and forbidding outside its as it Is spacious clous and luxurious within the marquis was iia I 1 in it tila his library seated at a flat topped desk dek which OTUS must suppose to 0 be the grandfather of all desks for it was big enough to make three or f four 0 ur ordinary writing tables young couples have bavo started housekeeping before now lit in a louse house whose floor door surface to ee ap appeared no greater than the top of that desk it was covered with lah set get from belfast to galway in three hours houra that makes makei eleven cloven or twelve hours from london to galway but by do ou mention laen llon galway that especially noted no as a seaport Is ll it it Is likely to le be if 1 the tunnel Is built it la Is the most convenient port to new york and it la Is in the central part of ireland it Is 13 the natural stopping place of the trans transatlantic atlantic steam 40 r as of 0 is fa I 1 I 1 a f 4 1 Z V larl 6 ff ze C Q el Z A 14 JQ I 1 V tk ca rt z 1 as route houte of 0 proposed tunnel i lies papers and ad maps ln in N which h c t the h marquis was evidently re much C in inter I 1 e r ested 1 I io believe lieve he said that the proposed sed tunnel would biang a great change to ireland and although of bourse it Is hn an undertaking that would haw have appalled the engineer of 0 a generation ago I 1 am told that thorn there Is 1 no mechanical difficulty today that stands in n the way of 0 it the total length ot of i the he tunnel under the sea bea would be t twenty enty five miles mid and the approaches on either cither alde de would be about the hie miles each thirty five miles in all of 0 course that la Is about throe three times as looe long as aa any tunnel yet built the sim plon la Js about thirteen miles it and the h e st gothard tunnel is in something like like nine alno miles nillia long long put ac li l i astonishing toni shing iliac pro progress giess the englat have made and it Is ilk likely cl ill that 1 in alio of the ten scare it would take to build the tunnel still further progress would bo mada 0 o that the i halt might be done in loss ina time than the tha first halt half would take UP GALWAY DOWN QUEENS TOWN bowier Ho wier that Is ie a matter for or the experts to talk about what I 1 am mot most sure dure about la Is that the tunnel M III be a great saying eavline of 0 time it takes six hours to net get from rom london to carlisle Carll Ble 13 by y means of 0 tile the tunnel it would be PoR to go front carlisle Carll Blo to belfast in from two to three hours with the I 1 ants that are to be expected in n ten felt years it should be possible to iff tho the marquis of londonderry L era and may become a port of great importance lance it ItA would cut several hours 0 off it the time or of passage if the steamers were nere to stop atop there instead of going to queenstown Queen Queens slown town but that pro gramme Is rather disastrous for queenstown Queens town it yes yea rather and Queens queenstown town la Is going to be heard beard from on the subject Is let she so no doubt but it Is in tile the voice of belfast that N will ill carry weight alit for that i Is the city most directly interested in ili the tunnel it Is tile the chief city of 0 ireland and does docs much the larger part of hr her business belfast would probably bo be tho the railroad terminal of the the tunnel an and doubtless the trains would lun iun to acl ft from the english side aide without stopping plopping to go eo from belfast to galay without changing earn cars would re quiro an entire nw now n w line of ralli oad oming ow in to the present difference in gauge be beleen between teen the angll sh hini irish roads but that would como come in time 1 I believe the pm emenger enger frallic alone would go ti a ing way toward finking the line pay for it la is a long disagree able trip by boat boa I 1 across thi the channel but perhaps I 1 am prejudiced they may ny I 1 am in favor of the tunnel because I 1 am such euch it a hotot bously bad fallor tile THE MONEY if the government refuses to gualt anteo antee the 3 per cent interest will the plan fall through for the present 1 I cant say eay but it seems hardly likely that the government will refuse rc tusi this case calls lynt parallel to that of mr air railroad africa Is unknown and the receipts from the roar road were problematical but blit with this tunnel the receipts can by be estimated almost eclen achen and besides the tunnel would have an important effect upon the development of ireland it Is an affair of national importance thy the money I 1 un der derkland BLand can be had as soon as the government guarantees the inter interest but the stockholders aill not ask tho G government 0 vern ment to step in until the work J Js entirely done and the plant Is ready for operation I 1 know little about the p plans ans for the financial part pan of the work but I 1 have no doubt american capital would bo be largely interested but one thing Is cert certain aln tile effort to interest the government Is a entirely y nonpolitical non political at the iho house of commons comy meeting over which I 1 had the honor of presiding one of tho the strongest supporters of the plan was my opponent at the polls and lord rosebery Rosc bery wrote that he had bad long believed there were few more pleasing objects of policy polly poliy y no not t only from the irish point of view w but also from the british and imperial viewpoints ile he said he believed that was cheap considering the advantages to bo be gained A TEN YEAR OLD I LAN PLAN this tunnel plan Is not new fifteen years ago it was seriously discussed and later the belfast chamber of cm commerce took it up and asked for government as assistance s Is t once in getting preliminary soundings and also for a guarantee of interest on the capital invested but the enterprise looked bigger than it does now and sounded like more money molley then than it does now and the government was afraid to go into it about the only danger now from an 1 engineering viewpoint Is the lly of assures in the lock the various strata that would be crossed are kanoti known n to bo be individually waterproof but a ns no sure chero hero two strata are arc joined might apoll the whole plan and make it necess necessary iury to find some other place of cros crossing a ing atut than that hot now selected connecting hect ing stranraer Stran raer on the scotch side with magee island twenty mites miles northeast of belfast on the irish irah side this Is not the narrowest point in the channel but it la Is tho the most feasible even here the tunnel would have to make a detour of two or three miles under water to avold avoid an especially deep depression runn running ng along parallel with tho the scotch coast with the route as at present laid out it Is estimated that the tunnel at its deepest point would be avo feet under the surface of the sea and that the iho steepest gradient aill hilll be one in seventy 11 fhe e velch aich la Is nothing extraordinary any american engineer would consider tho the estimate of ten years time required for this job to be b rather liberal for great progress has been made in the bleed of tunnel digging in tile the last fuenty five years when he st gothard tunnel wits was begun in 1872 tho the highest rate of progress ak vas as t to 0 and a half yards a day eleven years later the average rate of progress lit in the iho arlberg aas behe yards a day since then the increase has haa been rapid and it if R P chance la Is given to american con tractors to bid on the tunnel the ba bilt it lah ish public would be rather likely to discover that it take ten years to tie ingland england and ireland together 1 with 1 lh steel WOULD IT PAY not it a little doubt has ben expressed about aho financial feasibility of this extraordinary undertaking would the government have to go down into its pocket to find the 3 per cent it Is said in hi reply that a laigo at go part of ireland a growing co com minice moice would reach rea ell england through the tunnel velch alch ifould expect to compete with alth the channel steamers Ete omers in price arid and of coul couie for far thera them in speed it is said furthermore ther more that tile the green dle has vast possibilities as aa yet undeveloped end and only waiting for something to 10 come along and stir them up owing to the efforts of dish capitalists tourists are beginning to take a greater interest la in the island than they over ever took before and if it were n not ot such euch a difficult pa place d ce to reach they could bo be expected to g go 0 to there here in shoals As the route to scotland would be so short and quick it Is expected that irish produce would find a now new a ami lit profitable market in tho the manufacturing tono lovna of scotland and tim th north ot of rn england gland and perhaps most moat ot of all it Is 13 rather expected that a tunnel vi induce somo some ot of the atlantic transport lines to lo make 9 v 40 L t Z faw 1 AIM ly D z A boes 00 3 0 longitudinal section of the tha proposed Prop OBed tunnel runnel under the irish see sec ireland their t terminus galway calway being the place in mind I 1 linked asked it A rep re tentative enta tive of the walta star line what t he be had ad to say bay about that plan no answered that thal it coined feasible and that it bould especial lybe be worth considering hou the day tamo came oliue atlantic liners be built to earry carry only paon gers llo ile seemed to think that that day might come pretty soon CURTIS BROWN |
