The Channel Tunnel Study Group people claim that neither the existing air nor sea-ferry services are equipped to handle anything like this potential load. They estimate that without construction of a tunnel, the British and French Governments, through their nationalized rail and air lines, will be obliged to spend some $90,000,000 in the next five years to replace or expand existing transport facilities if they are to keep up with the increase in cross-Channel traffic expected in that time without Britain's participation in the Common Market. As for the capacity of the tunnel, the promoters claim that all the road vehicles that crossed the Channel in 1960 could easily be carried through the tunnel in three or four days. As for the transporting of merchandise, 11,000,000 tons of it are now being moved across the Channel in a year, most of this in bulk form—coal, for example—which it would not be practical to send through a tunnel. But of this freight, well over a million tons of nonbulk goods could, the Study Group declares, be sent by tunnel, and at about half the rates now prevailing. Taking into account such economic advantages, the great boon to tourism that they believe a tunnel would represent, and the intangible psychological impetus that they claim a fixed link between France and Britain would give to the dream of a politically as well as economically united Europe, the pro-tunnelers believe that the construction of their railway under the Channel would be just about the greatest thing to happen to Britain in this century.