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THE
BY
“G.
“To
F. S.”
thine own self be true.”—Shakespeare.
LONDON :
A.
63
BONNER,
FLEET
STREET,
1889.
E.C.
�LONDON ;
PRINTED BY A. BONNER,
34 BOUVERIE ST., FLEET ST., E.C.
�^573
(Lljc inbifaitrnalitj of Woman.
------ <.-----The Norwegian dramatist Ibsen, in his powerful drama,
“A Doll’s House,” treats of a subject which cannot but
be of keen interest to woman, namely, her relations to
man in married life. The heroine, Nora Helmar, is a
melancholy example of the result of the subordination
of individuality. Although thirty years of age, the
womanly gifts and powers of the wife and mother are
all stultified by the dominant will and egotism of her
husband. She lives in and for him ; his pleasure is her
law ; and when suddenly placed by circumstances in a
responsible position, she is totally helpless. The play,
which in its course shows her awakened to a sense of
her humiliating and tragical position, we need follow no
further ; but we cannot help feeling that the writer has
dealt with one of woman’s greatest inherent dangers,
namely, a tendency to sink her own individuality in
that of the other sex. This is even considered right
and becoming by many persons. Mrs. Sandford, in
“Woman in her Social and Domestic Character”, says:
“ Nothing is so likely to conciliate the affections of the
other sex as a feeling that woman looks to them for
support and guidance. In proportion as men are them
selves superior, they are accessible to this appeal. On
the contrary, they never feel interested in one who
seems disposed to offer rather than to ask assistance.
There is indeed something unfeminine in independence.
In everything, therefore, that women attempt, they
should show their consciousness of dependence.” But
is this a rational position ? We are individuals. We
�4
THE INDIVIDUALITY OF WOMAN.
are responsible creatures, just as much as men. Are
we not “fed with the same food, hurt with the same
weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the
same means, warmed and cooled by the winter and
summer”? Yet how common it is for women, after
losing their names at the altar, to follow up that loss
by abandoning their individuality also, and becoming
the mere echoes of their husbands. As John Stuart
Mill says: “By dint of not following their own nature,
they have no nature to follow; their capacities are
withered and starved, and they are generally without
either opinions or feelings of home growth ”. Is the
world really enriched by this deduction from it of half
its energies ? Is the husband’s life really dignified by
such flattering echo of himself ? Is there not rather
something in it suggestive of the mocking-bird or the
parrot ? Surely there can be no true comradeship
where the woman takes the place of a courtier beside
her husband ? “I would rather have a thorn in my
side than an echo”, said Emerson. Many women shun
the duty and effort of individuality from the terror of
being dubbed “strong-minded females” or “men in
petticoats”; but this is evading the question. “Because
I like a little salt to my meat, there is no cause to
suppose I wish to be pickled in brine.”
There need be no fear of our losing our womanliness
through retaining our individuality. Our sisters across
the Atlantic are far more charming and winsome in
manners than we, and are introducing into our dull
conventional social life an esprit and brilliancy unknown
among us before. Matthew Arnold says: “ Almost
everyone acknowledges that there is a charm in
American women—a charm which you find in almost
all of them, wherever you go.” And this is simply
because they live their own fresh natural lives, instead
of tamely echoing those of others. The mind, freed
from mental swaddling-clothes, begins to grow and
become interested and interesting. There is one striking
point in which American women recognise their own
existence, with very happy results. American families
are, owing to womanly influence, limited ; with us they
appear to be unlimited ! There is no more astounding
�THE INDIVIDUALITY OF WOMAN.
5
experience than to hear a seemingly modest, fairly
intelligent woman speaking complacently of her seven
or eight children. Can she possibly be vain enough to
imagine she is able to understand and guide the minds
of so many differently constituted creatures, no two of
whom should be trained and treated alike ? One, for
example, suffering from constitutional diffidence, needs
almost to be flattered to develop his hidden capabilities;
another should be sternly ignored, in order. to repress
his abnormal self-confidence; and a third is quick in
brain but easily exhausted in body. Another, again, is
apparently dull and stupid, but only needs to be let
alone to grow at his own natural speed and in his own
natural manner, and who most probably may prove like
the tortoise in the race with the hare, the winner after
all. A child may be apparently sullen, but is in reality
only timid ; or he who is seemingly frank is, in fact,
only self-sufficient; and so on in infinite shades and
varieties of character. One would imagine that when a
woman had two or three such difficult studies to solve,
she would say: “Hold! I can no more; here is the limit
of my powers ”. But no, willingness and affection, they
think, will make up for the absence of all else; or
perhaps they don’t think at all, or dimly remember
something about fruitful vines, etc., and conclude that
because in a struggling young nation like the Jews each
male or fighter was of great value, therefore by adding
citizens, no matter of what quality, to our congested
over-peopled country they are fulfilling the British ma
tron's highest functions. In this question of families
the American woman bravely and gracefully becomes
the guide of her husband, while the English wife is
simply the echo of his wishes or egotism. Really one
wonders sometimes if women can think, so wholly do
they leave this part of their duty unpractised. Does it
ever cross their minds that perhaps it is “ cruel to
summon new beings, as sensitive as themselves, into a
world which to each fresh generation seems to loom
more awful in the obscurity of its meaning and its
end”?
.
.
The very quality of their chosen reading lulls their
brains to sleep. They avoid all literature which has
�6
THE INDIVIDUALITY OF WOMAN.
any strenuousness or wrestling in it. It is this indolence
of mothers which in religious questions so frequently
alienates their children’s mental lives from them as
they develop. Each generation must have some new
movement of thought. “The old order changeth, yield
ing place to new, lest one good custom should corrupt
the world.” But the woman who has kept her mind
in a paralyzed condition will not know or admit this.
AX hat she was taught as true fs true, and if her children
follow other teaching they must be wrong. Strangely
enough, while in all other subjects, literary, artistic, or
mildly political, she is but her husband’s echo, here, should
his religious views develop and become more liberal,
she makes a stand, and one might think by this attitude
of resistance that at last her individuality was asserting
itself. Alas ! no ; she is only leaning on another mental
prop—her clergyman or minister.
I have, said that the mental separation from her
children is often the result of the mother’s indolence
of mind, an indolence which is quite compatible with
any amount of bodily and social activity. But there is
sometimes another and a sadder effect, especially where
great affection exists, and innate mental activity in the
child is lacking. I remember putting into the hands of
a young friend of mine Cotter Morison’s “ Service of
Man”. After reading it she quietly remarked: “ It seems
a clever book, but of course I don’t agree with it ”. A
more naturally modest girl does not exist ; yet without
during her young life having made even a desultory
acquaintance with the varied shades of thought in
modern life, she conceives that because the thoughts
broached in the book are not in accordance with those
she has hitherto heard of they are necessarily false.
John .Stuart Mill analyses this condition of mind thus:
“ Their conclusion may be true^ but it might be false
for anything they knew ; they have never thrown them
selves into the mental position of those who think
differently from them, and considered what such person
may have to say, and consequently they do not in any
proper sense of the word know the doctrine which they
themselves profess.” At first sight it may seem as if
the mother had mental energy and individuality, since
�THE INDIVIDUALITY OF WOMAN.
7
her child so fixedly follows her belief; but it is not
really so. Had the mother’s mind been full of vitality,
she would have taught her child to search for herself,
and not have fixed her to a belief which after all was
only the echo of her own clergyman.
Speaking of the clergy reminds one of a new danger
which menaces us from the lack of independence of thought
in women. I have spoken of the married woman being
often but the echo of her husband’s mind, but the un
married woman taking her opinions from her clergyman
is a much more humiliating spectacle. If the suffrage
be extended to women, what does it mean but that the
votes of the clergy will be enormously augmented ! I
know, of course, there are clear-headed, original women,
but I speak here of the many ordinary women who are
under clerical influence, and are as dough in the hands
of their minister. A lively and, I fear, discerning writer
in one of our weekly journals says: “ It is the fashion to
laugh at clerical influence as a thing of the past, and
past it may be as far as men are concerned, but with us
women it was never more rampant. In small country
towns and villages—and these send members to Par
liament as well as our great intellectual centres—the
ordinary unmarried woman turns instinctively to her
rector or minister for guidance upon all occasions.
Probably he is the only man of education to whom she
can appeal; he listens to her patiently, and earns his
reward—her blind, unquestioning obedience. The net
result of the women’s franchise will be to quadruple,
nay, centuple, the political powers of the clergy in
England.
Now, the clergymen — though endowed
with many virtues, no doubt—are after all but human;
why then should they receive this sudden accession of
power ? If it were proposed to give it to the members
of the military, legal, or any other profession, what an
outcry there would be ! ” In all ages of the world,
when the influence of the clergy has not been sharply
restricted, danger and deterioration have followed to the
nations. This is almost too self-evident a fact to insist
on, but it is, alas! too true that many persons, especially
women, do not recognise it. Who but the clergy of all
sects, by their teachings that it is God who sends illness
�8
THE INDIVIDUALITY OF WOMAN.
and plagues, have hindered the spread and practice of
sanitary measures ? Is it not always the clergy who
are against any growth of knowledge, whether it be the
fact of the world moving—they having said it did not—
or that this same world was made in a different way
and time from their averred six days of twenty-four hours
each? Who but Saint Chrysostom taught the degrading
theory that “woman is a necessary evil, a natural
temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a
deadly fascination, and a painted ill ” ?
If woman with her duty-doing desires could once
realise the truth that “in proportion to the development
of her individuality each person becomes more valuable
to herself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable
to others
she would surely not feel herself justified
longer in stultifying her usefulness by mental languor
and acquiescence. How womanly one feels the rule
made and kept by Margaret Fuller’s sister, who, no
matter how much her children absorbed her, would
rescue one hour each day for reading, in order that her
mind should be kept fresh for them, and that she should
not simply be to them a mere source of physical nurture.
And, indeed, how, unless they keep themselves in con
stant vigorous mental action, can they guide the young
ones about them ? for of what value is a succession of
echoes ? What vigor there might be in the rising
generation if the mothers taught their girls (girls par
ticularly, for boys escape earlier from the torpor of
home) to think about the life they are called into,
instead of simply accepting, as for the most part is the
case, a conventional set of statements told them by half
educated men—for the ordinary clergyman can be but
half-educated, his business being to be sectional or one
sided ! The dulness and philistinism of our homes are
mainly owing to the sleepy accept-what-is-accepted
temper of the mother’s mind, instead of households
becoming by her influence centres of fresh and vital
atmosphere.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The individuality of woman
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. By "G.F.S." [title page].
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A. Bonner
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1889
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N573
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G. F. S.
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Women
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NSS
Women
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https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/7d677a7b95d19ab0f5c98f04773d69a6.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=GLvbr8b0SVxdm-XY1XzqplJ-GWN8A2WZmW2%7En5Sw8at8PlERnWGzJ8Xz1mZ5627XaTvZIVTNKfBvUeOOBiB1rPA1rgxyiFfXL3vF0uT%7ElO-wZM0ijYzFEFmq8pyWIcPAkkCv1Bh65kj4TiRgs9nKmos81ca3dZMUPN%7EbkXc4gJ%7EIWhXpFAHB2imA7Hl320JfUckMs0LJQnDS5n3Mv59s3GrX6JyNBt5R3fPdmZk-zZx4vmObYX08p90KToUYcZVA7CAbwr2zK6gdhDPmhIWAAgaTeR4NtD2GeDaMdsJbzSNxO-CBiDQnL4Rw%7EzB0RPtFp1Nr%7EU78xt2jNGIQmtO4Ng__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
libit tasus C iliilisatinn:
AN APPEAL TO THE PIOUS.
BY
“G. F. S.”
“Rivers of
THY LAW.”—Ps.
waters
cxix.,
run
down
mine
eyes,
because
they
136.
LONDON:
A. BONNER,
63
FLEET
STREET,
1889.
E.C.
keep
not
��&
WibU tom 0 i bi Its atf ott.
In his time, old John Bunyan grieved that religion
went in silver slippers. What would he say now
were he alive? We no longer respect the God we
profess to worship, but have gone after the luxurious
idol of civilisation. Civilisation is replacing God in our
hearts and lives; we are casting out the Almighty from
among us, and following other lights than His. It is
time to rouse ourselves and begin to read the Bible,
which we pretend to reverence, though we neglect to
make ourselves acquainted with its sacred pages. If
we profess godliness, let us have the decency to follow
the precepts of our God. It is true that He has said
“ An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, and because
it suits our social arrangements the murderers among us
are made to suffer the just penalty of their evil doings.
But God has also said “ Thou shalt not suffer a witch
to live”, and if God had not known that witches existed
He would not have given such a terrible command. So
explicit is His will in this matter that not only is death
the prescribed punishment, but the precise manner of
it—a bleeding shuddering death by stoning—is com
manded. Yet we, glorying in our pretended enlighten
ment, decide we know better than our God, defy him,
and speak with horror of the near date of 1722, when
the last witch was burnt in Scotland by Captain Ross,
Sheriff-Depute of Sutherlandshire! Who are we that
we should change the decrees of Omnipotent Wisdom,
creatures of a day who cannot fathom his awful
designs? We cry Lord! Lord! and do not his com
�4
BIBLE V. CIVILISATION.
mands, but allow ourselves to be softened and beguiled
by our humanity into the ways of the Secularists. That
holy man John Wesley said that the giving up of witch
craft was in effect the giving up of the Bible. “ I can
not ”, said he, “give up to all the Deists in Great
Britain the existence of witchcraft till I give up the
credit of all history, sacred and profane.”
There is nothing in which we have more treacherously
forsaken our religion than in our way of treating heresy.
We even pride ourselves on our toleration, and look
back upon the past “ persecutions”, as we irreligiously
call them, with horror and disgust. Yet if we believe
our religion to be the only true one (as who among us
does not ?), what is our duty respecting the heretic, the
man or woman whom we believe to have forsaken the
only true God ? Does the Almighty whom we worship
command us to tolerate such, to live harmoniously with
such, bearing with them, praying with them, and
beseeching our God to turn their hearts unto Himself ?
Not so. God knows the spiritual leprosy which will
infect us if we live with heretics, and in His awful
wisdom he says the heretic shall be cut off from the
land of the living. “ If thy brother, the son of thy
mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy
bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice
thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other Gods .
. . . thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto
him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt
thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him : but thou
shalt surely kill him ; thine hand shall be first upon
him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all
the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones that
he die ” (Deuteronomy xiii, 6—io). ‘ We cannot do this
thing ’, we cry ; ‘ we cannot obey here ’ ; spare us, O Lord,
we say; or, worse, we try to explain away the com
mand, saying Christ’s mission has changed all that.
This is sheer self-indulgence. We either are to obey
the Unchangeable, or we are not. “ Thus saith the
Lord ! ” We cannot escape the fact that if we profess
godliness we must, at any cost or pain or distress, obey
the mandates of our God; and they are rigid. What
matter how flesh and heart shrink from casting out the
�BIBLE V. CIVILISATION.
5
wife of our bosom and seeking her death, if only our
conscience is at peace ? Do we not extol the great and
beautiful obedience of Abraham in his willingness to
slay his beloved son ? Do we say he ought to have
disobeyed his God ? And who are we that we shall
dare with impunity to disobey explicit commands ?
Friends, we try in vain to fit our modern ideas to our
God-given ancient religion. How are we better than
the Secularists ? They ignore the Bible ; we pretend
to worship its precepts, and blasphemously neglect its
severe demands. We pick and choose as we like, and
obey only such of the Almighty’s laws as fit our modern
civilisation, which boasts that it “has assisted,. if,
indeed, it may not claim the main share, in sweeping
away the dark superstitions, the degrading belief in
sorcery and witchcraft, and cruel intolerance ”. Alas,
is not our science sweeping away our ancient and
divinely-inspired religion ?
To take up a specially modern delusion, does a
reverent and earnest study of God’s dealings with the
ancient peoples show him to be such as our nineteenth
century sentiment imagines—a God of love, a heavenly
Father ? It is very charming to think of Him as such,
no doubt ; our duty, however, is not to find the charm
ing, but to search the true. Do we not read of very
frequent and terrible massacres of men, women, and
children by His direct commands ; though sometimes
virgins were spared as booty for God’s priests ? “ But
Sihon, king of Heshbon, would not let us pass by him;
for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made
his heart obstinate that he might deliver him into thy
hand .... and we took all his cities at that time,
and utterly destroyed the men and the women, and
the little ones, of every city ; we left none to remain”
(Deuteronomy ii, 30, 34). This is one of many similar
cases. And do we not see God’s anger — his great
majestic anger — raised against all flesh from time to
time, until we feel that punishment, not love, is the
garment of the Almighty ? From the unsinning cattle
which died of hailstones (Exodus ix, ig, 23, 25) to the
preachers, 450 in number, of a false religion, who had
to be slaughtered by God’s true clergy, the one penalty
�6
BIBLE V. CIVILISATION.
of exciting the divine wrath is—death. This thought
naturally does not please us; we do not care to enter
tain it ; we seek other writings to contradict it ; but
it remains. It is of the Lord ; His law is eternal ; let
Him do what seemeth Him good. Shall not He do
with His own as He will ? The God of Nature and
the God of our beloved Bible are not opposed. They
are one. We can, as that pious soul Cowper said so
truthfully, “Look from Nature up to Nature’s God”.
The law of destruction so noticeable in Nature is also
God’s law as expressed to us in his earliest written
revelation. . How little the Christ realised God’s spirit
is shown in the opposition of his teaching to His
Father’s. “ Do unto others as you would that they
should do unto you,” is Christ’s teaching. Something
very different was the treatment which the Almighty
commanded his Chosen Ones to exercise towards those
nations with whom they had dealings. “ So Joshua
smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and
of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings : he
left none remaining ; but utterly destroyed all that
breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded ”
(Joshua x, 40).
‘‘And that day Joshua took Makkedah, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and
the king thereof he utterly destroyed, them, and all
the souls that were therein ; he let none remain ”
(Joshua x, 28). The celebrated French divine Bossuet, one of God’s most eminent modern servants, shows
how deeply he has studied the method of the Eternal,
when he says, “ God has all hearts in His hand ;
sometimes He holds back the passions, sometimes He
gives them the rein. Does He wish to make legis
lators ? He sends them His wise spirit and foresight.
He warns them of the evils which threaten states, and
establishes public tranquillity. Knowing human wisdom
to be limited, He enlightens it, extends its powers, and
then abandons it to its ignorance. He blinds it, over
turns it, confounds it by itself. Its own subtleties
embarrass it, and its precautions are its snare. When
God wishes to destroy empires, He weakens counsel.
Egypt, once so wise, becomes drunken, stupid, and
tottering, because the Lord has spread the spirit of
�BIBLE V. CIVILISATION.
7
folly in its councils. But let not men deceive them
selves. God restores the lost faculties when it pleases
Him. It is thus that our God reigns righteously over
the peoples.” God and Nature are not in opposition ;
the severity of Nature is the expression of his Omni
potence—his Power. Are not “ the scorpion’s sting, the
cobra’s poison, the ferret’s teeth, the tiger’s claws, and
the eagle’s talons ” part of His divine design ? Is not
the law of the forest, is not the law of the ocean, rapine
and destruction ? Creation must be an expression of
the Creator—His thought. Let us who are believers
in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses not
try to escape, by the road of evolution, from the fact
that God is the maker of all created things, and that
He has Himself given the instincts to each creature,
whether it is the instinct of the cat to torture the mouse
ere killing it, or the instinct of the male rabbit to
devour its offspring, or that of “ the wasp bringing in
the caterpillar for its young, and stinging it enough to
paralyse, but not to kill ”. Is it not enough for us to
know that since God designed “ animals to prey upon
each other for food, and then pronounced the system
of almost universal carnage ‘very good’,” as a living
writer expresses it, it is the Father’s will ; and we
ought to forbear making comparisons between our petty
ideas of goodness and the divine conceptions. Let us
beware of mental pride in such matters, and bow our
spirits before the Inscrutable.
In the light of these conclusions as to the unity of
God and Nature, marriage, the central social institu
tion, can be better understood. Our modern European
notion of monogamy being the highest form of union
between man and woman, leads us to assume that it
is of divine institution. We resent any tampering with
it, as immoral and contrary to the will of God. But
were not God’s chosen friends polygamists, and of a
most pronounced type ? Had not Abraham his Sarah,
Hagar, Keturah, and concubines besides ?
Jacob
married two sisters and their two maids, and “ God
hearkened to Leah and Rachel and gave them sons”, as
indeed he also blessed their maids. David had his
Michal, Abigail, Ahinoam, and “ four more wives and
�BIBLE V. CIVILISATION.
concubines out of Jerusalem ”, God blessing .six of the
seven with children. May we not therefore infer, since
Abraham and David were so close to God, and intimate
with His counsels, that polygamy is more in accordance
with His will than monogamy ? Indeed, do we not
altogether misunderstand the relative importance of
man and woman as demonstrated in the Holy Scrip
tures ? Surely even the Mohammedans read God’s
pleasure on this point better than we, His apostate
children who lightly preach the equality of the sexes ?
And our very notions of illegitimacy are completely
opposed to the cherished biographical facts of the
greatest of the Bible heroes. God, like Nature, mocks
at our little social ceremonies and upstart ways, and
bids us back to our noble Old Testament to see what
manner of men were “ after his heart ”.
One last word. Let us cast from us, O friends, the
silver slippers John Bunyan dreaded so much, and
which have beguiled our steps too long into the wide
sweet pastures of godless tolerance and civilised chari
ties. Beautiful to look at, luxurious to worship, as is
the idol of civilisation, which makes a virtue of for
bearance and a merit of Samaritanism, it is at our
soul’s peril we pay homage at that shrine. The
Eternal’s dealings with, and instruction to, His own
people, must be our guide; and may we bravely, and
at whatever cost or heart-break, fulfil His awful Will.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Bible versus civilisation : an appeal to the pious
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: By 'G.F.S.' [from title page]. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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1889
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Bible
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https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/b17e54a0ca78b8e5523efa4ba566a1ba.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=l1TFFbVV%7ESj7U-9KrJiY5WvPfHu0s85t7hxrEsI18zYqUD2Frl21F%7E8jEZBCF-j2GUymczI0-J%7E9DGriy%7Ek3CMuyi7u8daKMQJz%7EsT4f0Bm6jEsh4%7E88Z17dDOB5xxNI6Qs5qAY35dVFlEy8zZxk4l1kubiEMxtOrVv6cdjE8Rr5AvE7oEOTHXK0fRFpZ%7EzIChrqAow-2dEJlzBiqyVqcJm5pM%7E-TZUQoXbiLXJYh0KtQj2-CHt5D%7E-3h4d4F7tgwob6mu4AFwksa7clOKKrDQNilAeQ-uF%7EkJUtUu4HPz6mu-qiA7PW%7EQbkMRneG2kOvSHVR4MAEoBTyesn5Ti9rA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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Text
(Llj£ Cbljnmwl ®nnnd:
OUGHT THE DEMOCRACY TO OPPOSE
OR SUPPORT IT?
<*
--------------------- -
By CJ^LEg BHJTOIiJlU'QjI, JI.P.
LONDON:
Printed and Published by A. Bonner,
34, BOUVERIE STREET, FLEET STREET, E.C.
Price 2d.
��THE CHANNEL TUNNEL:
OUGHT THE DEMOCRACY TO OPPOSE OR SUPPORT IT ?
---------- +----------
I went down to the House of Commons on August 3rd
intending to speak and vote in favor of the second reading
of the Channel Tunnel Experimental Works Bill, but on
the appeal made first by the Chairman of Committees, and
repeated by the leader of the House—an appeal also con
curred in by Mr. John Morley, speaking on behalf of the
front Opposition bench—I refrained from speaking, and
contented myself with a silent vote in favor of the measure.
Since then I find such a concurrence of opinion in the
press hostile to the Channel Tunnel that I think it my
duty to publicly state my reasons for my vote, especially
as Sir Edward Watkin, in moving the Bill, directly asked
for an expression of opinion from the English democracy,
and on the division being taken the representatives of
labor in the House were in opposing lobbies on the
question. A circular signed by Mr. C. Sheath, Secretary
pro tem. of the Channel Tunnel Company, clearly stated
the objects of the Bill voted on, i.e., “To authorise the
promoters to prosecute the experimental works which they
have commenced at their own cost under authority granted
�4
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
by Parliamant in 1874, to test the practicability of con
structing a tunnel beneath the Straits of Dover”; and
explained that “the Bill empowers her Majesty’s Govern
ment, in the event of the experimental works proving
successful, to sanction the prosecution of permanent works
under such conditions and safeguards as the Government
in their absolute discretion may impose. The experi
mental works for which permission is now sought will be
made upon the promoters’ own property and at their own
cost. The public are not asked to contribute towards the
work, which will not impose any pecuniary obligation
upon the country.”
I, however, quite admit that those who are prepared
to support the experimental works ought also to be pre
pared—in the event of these workings proving successful
•—to authorise the construction of a complete working
tunnel, and that any objections which might be valid as
against the complete undertaking ought to be admitted
as conclusive against the experimental proposal. I am
personally in favor of the Channel Tunnel because I
believe it would promote peaceful relations between the
peoples of France and England. I am not a shareholder
in either the French or English scheme solely because I
have not the pecuniary means to acquire shares.
I believe that peaceful relations between Great Britain
and Europe would be rendered more probable by the
facilities afforded for commercial intercommunication. I
hold that the more peoples trade with each other, the
more they know one another, the less likely they are to
fight one another. It is because I am in favor of peace
between France and England that I am in favor of the
Channel Tunnel. Here I only reaffirm what was so well
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
5
•said by the late Richard Cobden, speaking on this very
question of a tunnel between England and the Continent:
“It is not enough to put the Government and the higher
■classes of each country on a friendly footing; that good
feeling ought to penetrate the masses of the two nations ;
and it is our duty to multiply all the means for an inces
sant contact, which will certainly put an end to super
annuated prejudices and old ideas of antagonism?’
The horribly increased and always augmenting Euro
pean army and navy expenditure of the last twenty-five
years, the British share of which Lord Randolph Churchill
now strongly denounces, can only be efficiently checked by
concurrent and decided peace action on the part of all
European peoples. The great need for early disarming is
admitted. The peaceful co-operation of France and
England would enable each, relying on the other’s good
will, to waste less money in warlike preparations. It is
in this interest that I support the proposed submarine
pathway between this island and the Continent. I believe
that increased facilities for friendly intercourse would pro
mote and secure the peaceful co-operation I desire.
Something has already been done towards showing that
the Channel betwixt Kent and the Pas de Calais can be
tunnelled. Last year I visited the works, near Shakspere’s
Cliff, on the west of Dover, and penetrated under the sea to
the place where the engine, worked by compressed air, had
bored from England through the greyish clay chalk If miles
in the direction of France. I found the piece of tunnel
already executed quite dry; the air was perfectly pure, the
ventilation being provided by the compressed air which
works theboringmachine; and the work of tunnelling—which
under the supervision of a Government official was allowed
�6
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
to be continued for a few seconds—seemed astonishingly
easy, as the revolution of the machine cut the chalk away
and delivered it into the waggon behind ready for removal..
The experimental tunnel is bored in the strata which are sup
posed to represent the continuous earth surface—between
what are now the coasts of France and England—in pre
historic times when the land, now these islands, formed,
part of the great European continent. Messieurs Lavalley,
Larousse, Potier, and Lapparent, in their report to theFrench Channel Tunnel Company, presented in 1877, say:
“Examination of the cliffs on each coast of the Straitsshows that the geological strata are the same in the area
which concerns us, and which includes especially thecretaceous formation. On both sides are the same strata,
with the same characteristics, and, remarkable to say, with,
the same thickness. Hence the presumption—authorised
indeed by other considerations—that in the prehistoricperiod, instead of an arm of the sea, separating two coasts,
there stretched here a continuous, more or less undulating,
plain, between the points at which have since been built
Calais and Boulogne on the one side, Folkestone and Doveron the other. According to this hypothesis, the Straits
would be due to the gradual erosion of a soil of slight
consistency, such as the cretaceous formation in general,
which yielded before the ceaseless repetition of blows from,
the waves of the Northern Sea, a sea so stormy during therougher months of the year. From this we gather thehope that the strata encountered beneath the sea, through
which the tunnel must be driven, will be free from seriousdislocations, and will only present slight undulations to
which it will generally be possible to conform the plan of.'
the subterranean railway without any great difficulty.
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
7
“ This hope is confirmed by the following circumstance:
the strata of the chalk formation on the two sides of the
Straits, although thrown out of the horizontal plane they
first occupied, have not acquired a steep inclination. The
inclination is always slight. Over the greater part of the
area of the Straits, starting from France, the gradient is
but f, a fact that seems to indicate that the force of the
upheaval which threw the strata out of the horizontal
plane was not violent.”
I am told that on the French side a similar boring
to the one which I visited near Dover has been
made towards this country, so that about one-eighth
of the experimental work has already been executed.
Why is it not continued to completion? The promoters
on both sides are ready enough; the French Government
is willing; but the British Government—influenced as I
think by the worst form of national prejudice—absolutely
forbids further working on this side, and the French are
of course unwilling to continue costly works—which can
only be completed with our full consent—until that con
sent is officially secured. The only reason for objecting to
the Channel Tunnel is that it will render us specially
liable to invasion. Some contend that the Tunnel will
not pay ; but that, as the British Government said thirteen
years ago, is rather the business of those who, believing
in the probabilities of its financial success, are willing to
risk their moneys in the hope of reasonable financial
profit. The war danger is the only cry to which the
democracy need pay any attention. When the matter
was discussed between the Governments of Great Britain
and France thirteen years ago, this war danger was
examined by the Government of the day of this country
�8
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
and dismissed as not serious. In a despatch from the
Foreign Office to Count de Jarnac, the French Ambassador,
dated 24th December, 1874, the Earl of Derby wrote that
“Her Majesty’s Government consider that it is for the
promoters of the undertaking to weigh well the questions
of the physical possibility of the undertaking, and its
probable financial success; but they see no objection to
the proposed preliminary concession to the French pro
moters, for the execution of the preliminary works, for
a term of three years, nor to the concession of five years
for making a definite contract with an English Company
for the completion of the undertaking, on the understand
ing that, should the promoters fail to fulfil these condi
tions, the land in England occupied by them, and the
works upon it, should revert to the Crown, or other present
owners thereof, so that the occupation of the land by a
Company which has failed, may not stand in the way of
any other undertaking.
“Her Majesty’s Government have no objection to offer
to the proposed grant to the promoters of a monopoly for
thirty years after the final completion of and opening of
the tunnel, nor to the concession itself extending to a
period of ninety-nine years from the same date, the ques
tion being reserved of some limitation being imposed as tothe date of the final completion.”
And it is clear that the military side of the question had
not been overlooked, for Lord Derby in a dispatch of the
same date to Lord Lyons says: “In regard to the refer
ence made in the papers received from Count de Jarnac
to the military necessities of either country, her Majesty’s
Government will only now observe that they must retain
absolute power not only to erect and maintain such works
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
9
at the English mouth of the tunnel as they may deem
expedient, but also, should they apprehend danger of war,
or of intended war, to stop traffic through the tunnel; and
it remains to be considered whether they should not have
the right to exercise their power without claim for com
pensation.”
Nor was the military question neglected or glossed
over, for two months later the following memorandum
was submitted to the Surveyor-General of Ordnance by
Sir W. Drummond Jervois, Deputy-Director of Works, on
3rd March, 1875, Sir Frederick Chapman being at that
time the Inspector-General of Fortifications :
‘1 Memorandum with Deference to the Proposed
Tunnel between England and France.
“ There appears to be no military objection to the pro
posed tunnel, provided due precautions be adopted.
“Should this country, in alliance with France, be at
war with another Continental power, the existence of the
tunnel might be advantageous.
“ Should this country be at war with France, the pro
posed tunnel could no doubt be readily closed. Having
regard, however, to the possibility of the tunnel being
unnecessarily injured under the influence of panic, and to
the probable cost of repairing such injury, it is desirable
to obviate, as far as possible, the necessity for adopting
extreme measures, and with this object to pay due regard
to defensive considerations in the construction of the
tunnel.
“ Moreover, unless proper military precautions be taken,
it might under some circumstances happen that France
might be able, in anticipation of a declaration of war, to
�10
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
send a body of troops through, the tunnel, and thus obtain
an important military advantage. Such a body of troops
could readily intrench themselves, and could be rapidly
reinforced.
“ If, however, suitable defensive arrangements are made,
such an undertaking would be impracticable, and even in
case of war being imminent, no fears need be entertained
which might lead to the partial destruction of this costly
work.”
In April, 1876, the French Ambassador at the Court of
St. James applied on behalf of La Societe Frangaise Concessionnaire du. Chemin de Fer Sous-Marin entre la France
et l’Angleterre for the permission of her Majesty’s Govern
ment to take soundings in British waters near Dover for
the purpose of ascertaining the nature of the bottom
of that part of the English Channel, and the Board of
Trade were informed by the Lords Commissioners of her
Majesty’s Treasury, on the 10th June following, that the
necessary application had been granted.
Although a Channel Tunnel Company, with Lord Stalbridge (then Lord R. Grosvenor) as chairman, had ob
tained an Act of Parliament in 1875 authorising the com
mencement of experimental tunnelling works, nothing was
really done by way of submarine boring from the English
coast until the summer of 1880, when the borings just
referred to were commenced by the South Eastern Railway,
which obtained special powers from Parliament in 1881
for continuing the work and purchasing the necessary
land. These works and powers were taken over and con
tinued in 1882 by the Submarine Continental Railway
Company, Limited. The new company, however, found
itself almost immediately interrupted in the work by the
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
11
intervention of the English Government, such intervention
being the result of a panic created by military alarmists.
In August, 1881, the Board of Trade wrote to the
Admiralty that “ the work of forming a subway under
the Channel was making considerable progress ”, and
that “public susceptibility having been aroused as to
possible danger to this country from a tunnel under the
Channel”, the Board desired “to be fortified with the
opinion of the naval and military authorities ”.
In January, 1882, Admiral Cooper Key sounded the
panic trumpet, and did much to excite the opposition
which has, up to the present, proved fatally obstructive to
the progress of the English borings.
In May, 1882, a memorandum—most important because
issued after the panic opposition had got into full cry—
was issued by Sir John Adye, then Surveyor-General of
the Ordnance, embodying the report of a military com
mittee, presided over by General Sir A. Alison, which had
been instructed to consider “the means by which, sup
posing the Channel Tunnel completed, its use could be
interdicted to an enemy in time of war ”. Sir J. Adye says :
“The military precautions necessary to provide against
such a contingency almost naturally divide themselves into
two parts:—1. The defence or command of the exit by
means of batteries and fortifications. 2. The closing or
destruction of the tunnel itself, either temporarily or per
manently, both as regards its land and submarine portions.
The Committee have dealt with both points in some
detail. As regards the former they urge, that whilst the
land portion of the tunnel should be constructed in the
vicinity of a fortress, it is also important that its exit
should lie outside but under the full command of the
�12
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
batteries in the outworks of the fortress itself. With
respect to the partial closing or entire destruction of the
tunnel, both in its land and submarine portions, the Com
mittee have entered into various details, and have made
numerous proposals by which, if necessary, these objects
may be accomplished. According to my judgment their
recommendations, both as to defence and closure, are
sound and practical, can be carried on without great cost
or difficulty, and will amply suffice for the objects in view.
I agree with them that the general line of the land portion
of the tunnel had better be constructed not far from the
lines of a fortress, whilst the exit should also be under
the command of the guns of its outworks. Such a dis
position of the tunnel will facilitate the arrangements in
respect to the preparation of mines, etc., whilst a full
command of the mouth will render its use or occupation
by an enemy practically impossible. The various details
and proposals of the Committee as to obstruction and
closure, partial or permanent, are such as, I think, will
commend themselves to engineers, civil or military, as
being efficacious for the purpose; and I would further
point out that whilst they are comparatively simple, it is
evident they can be multiplied indefinitely, and have the
further advantage, that the possession of the tunnel and
its exit by an enemy would not prevent their being carried
into effect; and even should some of them fail, such a
contingency would not necessarily entail the failure of
others. The means of obstruction, in short, are not only
various but are independent of each other, and many of
them could be improvised or multiplied even at the last
moment. Nothing, indeed, is more obvious than the
facility with which the tunnel can be denied to an enemy,
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
13>
by means which no vigilance on his part could prevent or
remove.” And yet the British democracy are in 1887
asked to reject the tunnel scheme because a real or
counterfeit fear, in any case begotten of ignorance and
prejudice, has seized on some of our “great generals”
and hysterical journalists.
In April, 1883, a joint Select Committee of the Lords,
and Commons, five members from each House, was.
appointed ‘ ‘ to inquire whether it is expedient that Par
liamentary sanction should be given to a submarine com
munication between England and France ; and to consider
whether any or what conditions should be imposed by
Parliament in the event of such communication being
sanctioned
This Committee, presided over by the
Marquis of Lansdowne, held fifteen sittings, but although
several draft reports were prepared none was accepted,
but the majority of the Committee, six against four, wereof “opinion that it is not expedient that Parliamentary
sanction should be given to a submarine communication
between England and France
The minority report pre
sented by Lord Lansdowne is a paper of remarkable
ability, and sets out with great clearness the reasons for
and against the proposed tunnel.
General Sir Edward Hamley, M.P., who rose to speak
against the tunnel, as I rose to speak in its favor, but who
did not deliver his speech for the same reason which kept
me silent, wrote a letter to the Times, which the editor,
also hostile to the tunnel, says, “contrasts the position of
an invading army which had succeeded in effecting a
landing before a tunnel was formed with that of such
an army in the event of a tunnel being constructed—its
helplessness and peril, the difficulty in getting supplies
�14
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
or reinforcements, the risk that we should again obtain
command of the Channel in the former case, and the power
to draw indefinite supplies through the tunnel in the latter
case. The letter brings into relief the fact that even if we
succeeded in preventing an invader from coming on our
soil by means of this communication, it would be a great
.aid to invaders who had actually made good their footing
■otherwise.” 11 1 The possession of both ends would render
the invader independent of the sea. . . . Night and day
a stream of troops and supplies would be pouring through
the tunnel, possibly under the keels of our victorious but
helpless Channel fleet. Now, in this case—and I would
impress this point—it would no longer be a contest between
two armies, but between the entire military resources of
France on the one side and what we could oppose on the
other.’ Thus a tunnel makes hostile occupation, if not
invasion, easier.”
I submit that this is really carrying panic to madness
point, for, if an invading army, large enough and strong
enough to capture Dover, had landed otherwise than
through the tunnel, our state must have become so hope
less that discussion as to how such an enemy would get
supplies and reinforcement would cease to be material.
Such an army so invading England, otherwise than by the
tunnel, would be as dangerous to England whether or not
the tunnel existed.
The view now put forward by Sir E. Hamley was fully
raised and considered in 1883, and discussed in the
Minority Report of Lord Lansdowne, Lord Aberdare, the
Right Hon. W. E. Baxter, and Mr. Reel, now Speaker of
the House of Commons. The editor of the Times treats
Sir E. Hamley’s objection as not having been answered;
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
15
but it was in truth exhaustively examined and completely
answered in that Report. In paragraph 92 the Report
examines seriatim the principal apprehensions expressed
for the safety of the tunnel. “ These are to the effect that
it might pass into the hands of an enemy—
“(1) By surprise, effected through the tunnel itself;
“(2) By surprise, effected by a force landed in the
neighborhood of the tunnel, with or without the aid of
troops passed through the tunnel;
11 (3) By surprise, facilitated by treachery;
“ (4) After investment by an invading force;
“ (5) By cession as the condition of a disastrous peace.”
All these apprehensions are really expressions of fear
of hostility from Prance. If anyone of these apprehen
sions had carried weight with Italy, Germany, or France,
the St. Gothard Tunnel, or the Mont Cenis Tunnel would
never have been made. The three suppositions, 1, 2, and
3, are possible in case of an attempt made by Frenchmen
when France and England are both at peace, and indeed
this is Lord Wolseley’s contention. “ The seizing of the
tunnel by a coup de main is, in my opinion,” says his lord
ship, “ a very simple operation, provided it he done without
any previous warning or intimation whatever by those who
wish to invade the country.” “My contention is, that
were a tunnel made, England, as a nation, could be
destroyed without any warning whatever, when Europe was in
a condition of profound peace............. the whole plan is based
upon the assumption of its being carried out during a time
of profound peace between the two nations, and whilst we
were enjoying life in the security and unsuspicion of a
fool’s paradise.”
My short answer to this wild contention is that all
�16
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
intercourse between nations would be impossible and
life would be unendurable, if in time of “ profound
peace ” we are always to treat neighboring nations as ever
ready without provocation to suddenly assail our shores in
order to rob and destroy. The European experience of
the past century is entirely against the monstrous con
tention put forward by Lord Wolseley that Erance might
suddenly surprise us whilst we were in peace and alliance
with her and all European powers. It is an insult to
suspect our French neighbors of any such possible treason.
The repetition of such insulting suspicions is in itself a
provocation. In modern times there is no instance of
any outbreak of hostilities between two great powers
which has not been preceded at least by rumors and ex
pressions of uneasiness and highly strained diplomatic
negotiations on the points likely to culminate in rupture of
peaceful relations. Yet, except on such a traitorous sur
prise, Lord Wolseley himself guarantees the safety of the
tunnel, for he says that, if sufficient notice were to be
given, “fifty men at the entrance of the tunnel can pre
vent an army of 100,000 men coming through it ”.
The strongest military objections to the proposed tunnel
are those stated with considerable literary skill, heightened
by strong flavor of romance, in the long Memorandum of
Adjutant-General Sir Garnet (now Lord) Wolseley, dated
16th June, 1882. The weight of Lord Wolseley’s objec
tions on military grounds is a little weakened by the
almost special pleading in which he indulges on the com
mercial and diplomatic aspects of the question. The
whole attitude of Lord Wolseley towards the Channel
tunnel is that of an advocate who has a very hostile
brief. He is not in this memorandum a serious military
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL,
17
counsellor, warning his countrymen against real dangers.
He has recourse to poetry, pathos, general denunciation of
treaties as valueless, and to tricks of curiously irrelevant
appeal to national passion and national fear.
Every objection stated by Lord Wolseley was seriously
weighed by Lord Lansdowne and those who concurred in
the minority report.
‘‘With regard to the possibility of seizing the English
end of the tunnel by means of a small force landed in its
neighborhood,” Lord Lansdowne and those concurring
with him report: “we have endeavored to ascertain pre
cisely the conditions, of which the presence would be
indispensable if such an attempt were to have any chance
of success. Those conditions would, we understand, be
the following:
“(1.) It would be necessary that the invading force
should be despatched with absolute secrecy.
“ (2.) That it should cross the Channel unobserved and
unmolested by our fleet.
“ (3.) That the state of the weather should offer no
difficulties to the disembarcation.
“(4.) That its landing should be effected without
hindrance.
“ (5.) That it should advance without molestation from
the point at which it might be landed to the works by
which the exit of the tunnel would be protected.
“(6.) That it should find the garrison in a state of
absolute unpreparedness.
“(7.) That it should succeed in carrying by a simul
taneous rush the whole of the various works surrounding
the exit of the tunnel.
“ (8.) That this capture should be effected so rapidly as
�18
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
to render it impossible for the defenders of those works
to have recourse to any of the means which would be
in existence for the purpose of closing or destroying the
tunnel, or, that the whole of those means should simul
taneously chance to be out of working order.
“ That every one of these conditions should be present
at the same time appears to us most improbable. We
can well conceive that, with the rapid communications
now available for the movement of troops by land or sea,
a force such as that contemplated might be collected and
despatched, and possibly reach our coasts without warn
ing. That its landing, formation, and forward movement
could altogether escape detection we can scarcely conceive.
It would, we learn from Admiral Rice, take twelve hours,
even under the most favorable conditions, and assuming
the landing to be unresisted, to land 20,000 men, the force
contemplated by Sir Lintorn Simmons. Such a force could
not, however, in Admiral Rice’s opinion, be landed with
out attracting attention. A smaller body could, of course,
be landed with greater rapidity, but the diminution of
its numbers would not increase its chance of success. A
force of 1,000 men could, Sir Cooper Key informs us, be
landed under favorable circumstances in an hour; ‘the
larger the number of men,’ however, this witness adds,
‘ the more the difficulties that would arise against the
time, but I have no hesitation in saying, that if they were
equipped for it, with boats properly prepared, and a good
clear beach, they could land 10,000 men under ten hours.’
That such a force, or one approaching to it in strength,
should be able to traverse without detection or hindrance,
the distance intervening between the point of landing and
the exit of the tunnel, which, unless the recommendations
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
19
of the military committee are altogether disregarded,
would be at a considerable distance from the shore,
appears to us difficult to conceive; were it to be detected,
and the alarm given, the complete surprise of the garrisons
of the different forts would no longer be possible.”
One most extraordinary objection to the tunnel was
gravely urged before the joint Committee of Lords find
Commons in the evidence by the late Mr. Eckroyd, M.P.
for Preston, in answer to a suggestive question from the
Earl of Devon : “ Earl of Devon : You spoke of the
probable influence you anticipated from the introduction
of Erench labor upon the pecuniary interests of the British
workman in the manufacturing departments of industry
with which you are concerned; does it occur to you that any
other evil might arise by the spread of Socialistic or Com
munistic views from an increased intercourse between the
large body of French and English workmen ?—Mr E.:
That is an apprehension that is very often felt; and I
believe we have found that, specially in periods of slack
ness of employment and discontent, there would be an
active propaganda of an Atheistic and Socialistic kind ”
As though any ideas now circulated in France or on the
Continent could be hindered from permeating here by
mere refusal to construct a submarine tunnel! Lord
"Wolseley and the Duke of Cambridge fear that French
soldiers may conquer us bodily, coming for that purpose
secretly through the tunnel. The Earl of Devon and
Mr. Eckroyd have like fears of French Atheists and
Socialists, who would find in the Channel tunnel a con
venient conduit-pipe for their propaganda!
The great plague of Europe just now, and one that has
been increasing in its virulence and oppressiveness for the
�20
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
last quarter of a century, is the huge waste of men and
material in every European country in preparing for armed
offence and defence. If the figures compiled by Mr. Lewis
Appleton are correct, then during the year ending 31st
December, 1886, Europe had under arms, not including
reserves, no less than 4,123,675 men, and the European
forces available for war, including reserves, were 16,697,484.
In 1886 Europe spent on army and navy no less than
£187,474,522. Unless there be disarmament, there must
be fierce war or terrible revolution. The burden of in
creasing taxation is too continuously heavy for long
peaceful bearing. The rulers find pride and pomp in the
controlling and array of huge masses of armed men. It
is the peoples who pay and suffer.
Commerce is an eloquent peace preacher; the frequent
and more complete intermingling of unarmed peoples
begets distaste for war; national prejudices die away
under frequent contact; explanations are easier as peoples
know one another better. I am in favor of this Channel
tunnel because it will give to us in this island easier moans
of seeing our European brethren in their own cities. It
will afford to the folk of France the opportunity of knnwing for themselves that the English workmen do not desire
quarrel or war.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The Channel Tunnel : ought the democracy to oppose it or support it?
Creator
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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A. Bonner
Date
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1887
Identifier
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N082
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International relations
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Channel Tunnel : ought the democracy to oppose it or support it?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Channel Tunnel
France
Great Britain-Foreign Relations-France
NSS