in principle." After some further communications between the two
governments in 1874, settling the basis on which the enterprise should
be allowed to proceed, a joint commission was appointed to arrange
details relating to jurisdiction, the right of blocking the tunnel, &c.,
and this commission's report was accepted as a basis of agreement
between the governments. In 1875 the Channel Tunnel Company obtained an
act authorizing it to undertake certain preliminary works at St
Margaret's Bay. In the same year the French Submarine Railway Company
obtained a concession, with the obligation to spend a minimum of
2,000,000 francs in making investigations; in fact it took over 3000
samples from the bottom of the sea in the strait, and made over 7000
soundings, and also sunk a shaft at Sangatte and started a heading. The
English company did not do so much, for it failed to raise the money it
required and its powers expired in 1880. Moreover, it was not the only
company in the field, and its programme was not universally accepted as
the best possible. Some authorities, such as Sir Joseph Prestwich,
doubted whether the tunnel should be attempted in the chalk because of
the likelihood of fissures being encountered while others who thought
the chalk suitable were dissatisfied With the actual plans and formed a
rival "Anglo-French Submarine Railway Company." In 1882 another tunnel
company made its appearance. In 1874 the South Eastern Railway Company
had obtained powers to sink experimental shafts on its property between
Dover and Folkestone, and in 1881 to acquire lands, including the beach
and foreshore, in that area in connexion with a Channel tunnel. These
powers resulted, in 1882, in the formation of the Submarine Continental
Railway Company which in that year sought parliamentary sanction for a
tunnel, starting from a point west of Dover, at Shakespeare's Cliff; and
at the same time the resuscitated Channel Tunnel Company applied for
powers to make one from Fanhole, instead of St Margaret's Bay as in its
former scheme. The whole question of the tunnel was then widely
discussed and considered by various committees, the last of which--a
joint select committee of the Lords and Commons--in 1883 expressed the
opinion by a majority that it was "inexpedient that parliamentary
sanction should be given to a submarine communication between England
and France." This decision for the time being disposed of the question
of making a tunnel, a