Word: wolseley
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...years; French Engineer Albert Mathieu's 1802 design shows a coach-and-four trotting through a candlelit tube with ventilating pipes reaching above the waves. But whenever the 19th century pipe dream threatened to come true, Britain got skittish. A characteristically insular reaction came from Sir Garnet Wolseley who, as adjutant general of the British army, warned in 1882 that the tunnel "would be a constant inducement to the unscrupulous foreigner to make war upon us." Last week the British House of Commons, reviewing the issue for the 36th time in 172 years, scuttled the most serious effort...
Throughout, the French have shown more enthusiasm for the tunnel idea than the British, who have tended to agree with Sir Garnet Wolseley's 1882 protest that this link between England and the Continent would provide "a constant inducement to the unscrupulous foreigner to make war upon us." Although the security argument has faded into the background, skepticism among the British remains strong today. Detractors of the tunnel complain that the government has rushed ahead so quickly with the project that it has not given due consideration to alternatives, as, for example, bigger and better Hovercraft. Its proponents reply...