Stubbornly shaking his head, George Rowland Blades, Baron Ebbisham, onetime (1926-27) Lord Mayor of London and Alderman for the Ward of Bassishaw, was the only dissenting member of a board of five which last week enthusiastically endorsed the long-shelved project to build a 20-odd-mile tunnel under the English Channel, connect London and Paris by rail. Not so Lord Ebbisham. Pressed for reasons, he contented himself with remarking ominously: "The displacement of sailors on the Cross-Channel Route would be regrettable."
Soon after the first public passenger-carrying railway was finished (1825), forward-thinking Britishers proposed...