France as a Holiday Ground
France as a Holiday Ground is an article published in The Times on 7 november 1912.
Report of speech by Arthur Conan Doyle about the Channel Tunnel.
France as a Holiday Ground
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, as president of the Franco-British Travel Union, occupied the chair at the inaugural dinner which was held last night at the Café Royal. Among those present were Sir Thomas Elliott, Sir A. Conan Doyle, Sir. George Reid (High Commissioner for Australia), M. De Coppet (Consul-General of France), M. Paul Doumer (ex-president of the French Chamber of Deputies), Sir John and Lady Cockburn, Sir C. Cartwright, and Sir Thomas and Lady Barclay.
The Chairman, in proposing the toast "The Two Countries, their Dominions and Colonies," said that if on their travels Englishmen did not see the Union Jack in a place they were delighted to see the Tricolor. Wherever they saw a French colony they observed the excellence of the reacts. He had motored as many miles in France as any living Englishman, and there was no finer holiday ground in the world.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in responding for the guests, whose health was proposed by Professor Salmon, expressed his opinion that the least intelligent thing which had been done in our generation was the refusal to build the Channel Tunnel. It was in his judgment a matter of such urgent national necessity that it should be pressed forward at once to completion, but it should be a Government undertaking. In peace the tunnel would bring an enormous tourist traffic to London, and it would be a cheap and complete insurance against national starvation in time of war. If the estimates given were correct, we could for the price of about three Dreadnoughts have an absolute insurance against the one great threat which another nation could hold over us.
