Contemporary Review Volume 41 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 Excerpt: ...of a particular country. As the threat or the probability of an invasion of England would undoubtedly justify the British Government in the destruction of the Tunnel, so it becomes at once the interest of all nations that such a threat should be prevented, and such a probabiuty put out of question. The "nationalization," then, of the Tunnel, which Lord Dunsany seems to apprehend, could and would only take place in one sense and with one object, namely, by a joint guarantee of the Great Powers that the highway of the world should be kept open, one of the main conditions laid down being that it should never be used for the passage of troops or the purposes of invasion. Lord Dunsany's "General" appears to doubt that the Tunnel could be thus " neutralized" by an "international convention," but he admits that "to an ordinary Englishman this mode of reasoning would be satisfactory;" and as it is to "ordinary Englishmen" that I make my appeal, I trust they will not be of opinion, with the "extraordinary Englishmen" who take the other view, that in this nineteenth century "international conventions" go for nothing, that the "good faith of nations" may be regarded as worthless, and that the undertaking, which has been rightly called the '-' crowning enterprise of science," would be suffered by Continental Europe to be frustrated and rendered valueless by the restless ambition of any individual ruler, supposing such an one to arise. I do not desire to dwell longer upon this point, but it may be as well to oberve that, after all, self-interest is that which, to no inconsiderable extent, actuates nations as well as individuals; and, as there can be but little doubt that the i...