By June 9, the Board of Trade became quite out of patience over the matter of inspecting the tunnel. Introducing an ominous note, it informed Sir Edward that Mr. Chamberlain "feels that he must insist upon this visit of inspection, and if he understands that permission is refused, will be compelled to place the matter in the hands of his legal advisers, with the view of determining and enforcing the rights of the Crown." Sir Edward was indignant. In reply, he declared that he was being subjected to an "undeserved threat." Mr. Chamberlain, responding, denied that the threat was undeserved. He wrote firmly:
Hitherto, on one ground or another, this inspection has been again and again postponed.
I am bound to guard the rights of the Crown in this matter, and I desire to ascertain whether those rights have up to the present time been in any way invaded.
This is the object of the inspection, and as it will not brook delay ... I have only now to ask an immediate answer stating definitely when it can take place.
Sir Edward's answer was once more to beg Mr. Chamberlain himself to join a party of prominent visitors going down to see the tunnel; he added that "Colonel Yolland shall be at once communicated with."
But by various intervening circumstances—joint letters got up by the tunnel promoters to the Prime Minister and to the Board of Trade protesting hard treatment, and so on—the Board of Trade found itself brooking delays all through the month of June. On June 26, the Board of Trade wrote in stern fashion to Sir Edward that the demands of the Board of Trade to inspect the tunnel workings "have been repeatedly formulated and persistently evaded on behalf of the Submarine Continental Railway Company," and that the only way the company could avoid legal action by the Crown was "to consent at once to the proposed inspection." There was no satisfactory reply from the tunnel proprietors, and on July 5 the Board of Trade, after due notification to the Submarine Continental Railway Company, obtained an order from Mr. Justice Kay, in the High Court of Justice, restraining the tunnel promoters and their employees from "further working or excavating, or taking or interfering with any chalk, soil, or other substance" in the Channel tunnel without the consent of the Board of Trade, and ordering them to give the department access to the tunnel to inspect the workings. In the course of these judicial proceedings, a number of affidavits presented to Mr. Justice Kay by the Government revealed the interesting information that the Board of Trade, finding itself unable to obtain access for its inspectors into the tunnel, for some time past had felt itself obliged to station watchers on top of Shakespeare Cliff and on the sea regularly to spy upon the tunnel workings and to count the number of bucketfuls of soil it maintained had been removed from the workings. And, according to all its calculations, the Board of Trade had little doubt that the proprietors of the Submarine Continental Railway Company were deliberately and surreptitiously tunneling under the sea below low-water mark, on Crown property, and burrowing into and removing chalk of the realm.
Intimation of what was in store for him in the High Court of Justice reached Sir Edward Watkin at the very time that he was showing a party of distinguished people, including Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal, around the tunnel. A glimpse of that interesting visit is contained in a report in the London Times:
M. de Lesseps, while down in the tunnel and under the sea, proposed the health of the Queen, remarking that the completion of the work was required in the interest of mankind.
When all the visitors were again above ground, luncheon was served in a marquee.
Sir E. Watkin, in proposing the health of M. de Lesseps, remarked that there were those in our country who seemed to consider that the work of the company they had just inspected was a crime. He had just received a telegram informing him that he would have to answer on Wednesday next at the instigation of the President of the Board of Trade before a court of law for having committed the crime of carrying on these experiments. (Hisses and groans.)
Somewhat revealingly, Sir Edward added, when the signs of indignation subsided, that
For his own part, if he was to be committed by a court of law for contempt, he should have this consolation—that the proceedings which had been taken against him had been delayed sufficiently long to enable him with his colleagues to have the honor of entertaining M. de Lesseps, in whom he should have a witness, if he had to call one, to prove that they had been engaged in a work which had been as successful as he believed it would be ultimately useful.
At long last, supported by all the might of the Crown, Colonel Yolland got to the tunnel on July 8 to make his inspection of the workings. But upon his arrival there he found, to his chagrin, that "I was not provided, at the time ... with all the necessary means for making the measurements, and taking the requisite bearings" in the tunnel, and he was obliged to put his inspection off once more. Properly equipped, he descended into the tunnel a week later, on Saturday, July 15, and inspected everything, including the boring apparatus that Sir Edward had insisted had to be used to ventilate the gallery and prevent loss of life. What Colonel Yolland found there caused the Board of Trade, five days later, to send a most severe letter to the tunnel proprietors. In it, the Board declared:
1. That the means of ventilating the tunnel could have been and be so readily disconnected from the boring machine (i.e., by the movement of a single lever that would pour a stream of compressed air coming from the supply pipe directly into the tunnel) that it has never been necessary that a single inch of cutting should have taken place in order to protect life or to secure ventilation, nor can such necessity arise in the future.
2. That in spite of the repeated orders of the Board of Trade, and the assurances of the Secretary of the Submarine Railway Company and Sir Edward Watkin himself that those orders were acquiesced in and submitted to, the substantial work of boring has nevertheless been carried to a distance of more than 600 yards from low-water mark (thus constituting a trespass on the property of the Crown).