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House of Rothschild, and one quarter by the promoters and their friends.
"The English Company had no concession but merely the right to experiment at St. Margaret's Bay, and they only issued a prospectus proposing to raise a capital of 80,000l for experiments. This capital, partly owing to commercial depression, was never raised, and the year allowed for the purchase of land having expired in August, 1876, the work remained in abeyance. This being so, the works of the French promoters (who held their concession partly on condition of agreeing with an English Company working to meet them), appear to have languished also, and consequently no efforts were made to proceed with the ratification of the Treaty of which the report of the Joint Commission was to have been the basis.
"Since the termination of the proceedings of the Joint Commission above referred to, there have been no negotiations between the English and French Governments with regard to the proposed Tunnel."
We now come to the last stage or period in our narrative of the history of the Channel Tunnel Scheme, from 1880 to 1882, thus bringing us down to the present time, and as far as we are concerned, it is the most important, as it was during this period that the question was really investigated in this country by the appointment of committees, the taking of evidence, and the obtaining of the opinions of those competent to give opinions with authority on the military aspect of the case. I shall first briefly run over the sequence of the chief points in chronological order (which is found in pages XIII. to XVI. of the Precis or summary), and then give extracts from the report of one committee, the evidence brought before two committees, and sum up with the opinions of Lord Wolseley, and H.E.H, The Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief (the Duke of Cambridge).
From 1880 to 1882.
"On the 2nd August, 1880, five years had elapsed since the concession had been granted to the French promoters, and according to the terms of that concession they ought within this period to have come to terms with a duly authorised English
