§ SIR HARRY VERNEYasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether the work of the Channel Tunnel has been stopped, according to the pro- 1218 mise given by him; and, whether the work has been carried beyond low-water mark?
§ MR. CHAMBERLAINIn answer to my hon. and gallant Friend I must trouble the House with a short statement of the facts. On the 29th of March last the Board of Trade received a plan from the hon. Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin), showing that on the 23rd of March the works connected with the experimental boring had nearly attained the limit of low-water mark. On the 1st of April the Board of Trade demanded the discontinuance of the operations. On the 6th of April the Secretary of the Submarine Railway Company replied, acquiescing in the orders of the Board of Trade; and on the 9th of April the hon. Member for Hythe wrote that the Company had submitted to the order of the Board of Trade, and that he had peremptorily ordered the works to be stopped. He alleged that there was danger to life, owing to defective ventilation, and asked that a small ventilating heading might be allowed from shaft No. 3 to join the extension of shaft No. 2. On the 10th of April I informed him that I was unable to assent to any further progress, except with the one sole purpose of preventing danger to life, and I proposed that the engineers to the Board of Trade should immediately visit the Tunnel to arrange the steps that might be necessary for such protection. I stated to the House on a previous occasion the circumstances under which this official visit of inspection was evaded and postponed by the Submarine Channel Company, and it did not, in fact, take place until the 8th of July, after a suit had been instituted for the purpose of obtaining it. The investigations were completed on the 15th instant, and it then appeared from the Report of the engineers—first, that it has never been necessary that a single inch of cutting should have taken place in order to protect life or to secure ventilation; secondly, that, in spite of the repeated orders of the Board of Trade, the promise of the Secretary of the Submarine Company, and the personal assurance of the hon. Member himself, the substantial work of boring has nevertheless been carried forward to a distance of more than 600 yards below low-water mark. Under these circumstances, I have communicated with the solicitors 1219 to the Company, in a letter of which the last paragraph is as follows:—
In calling attention to those acts, which appear to constitute a flagrant breach of faith on the part of the Company, the Board of Trade have charged me to say that, having regard to the state of facts now ascertained, it appears to be absolutely necessary to intimate to the defendants that the order of Mr. Justice Kay of July 5 must be strictly and literally adhered to, and that 'the Board of Trade require that no work of any kind for maintenance, ventilation, drainage, or otherwise shall be executed until full notice of the intention to execute such works has been given to the Board.