significant answer of the Prime Minister to a correspondent who called his attention to the unsatisfactory state of the Land Laws in Great Britain. Woe worth the day (should it really come) when, for the good pleasure and selfish profit of any other class or classes, the 'fair'-yes, fair-wages of skill and labour shall suffer diminution ! But the question is one of neither one class nor one country. It is a question in which class and country are merged, or should be merged, in the whole world as one, and in all the equal claims and common interests of all mankind.

GEORGE POTTER.

FRANCE AND NORTH AFRICA.

WHILE the French expeditionary force was being concentrated on the Tunisian frontiers during the early days of last April, the Times pointed out that it would be deplorable if the action of France were to throw the countries on the Northern coast of Africa, which have been by tacit consent regarded as in some sort neutral ground, into a melting pot of ambition and aggression. This is precisely what has since happened, and it is much to be feared that momentous results will ensue from the French invasion of Tunis which its original promoters may never for a moment have contemplated. The present situation is a very grave one, and to realise its gravity it is necessary to recapitulate briefly the events of the past six months. In January and February the details of the cause célèbre, known as the Enfida case, first attracted the attention of England to the doings of the French in Tunis, and more particularly to the high-handed proceedings of M. Roustan. In March, the public interest felt about the Enfida was suddenly transferred to the frontier tribe of Hamírs, the existence of which was previously almost unknown. On the last day of that month a band of these hardy mountaineers was said to have slain several French soldiers in a fair fight on Algerian soil, and France at once resolved to vindicate her flag and secure the future integrity of her frontiers by an invasion of Tunisian territory. The guilt of the Hamírs, which is now known to have been more than apocryphal, was then treated in England as a foregone conclusion, and we received the most comforting assurances from M. St. Hilaire that the impending operations would be strictly confined to their condign punishment, and nothing more. The security of our frontier,' said M. Jules Ferry, 'demands durable pledges, and it is of the Bey of Tunis that we ask them. We have no designs against his territory or his throne.' Up to the time when the French troops actually entered the Regency, the Bey of Tunis never believed in the reality of the danger which threatened him. As a fief of the Sultan of Turkey, he fondly imagined that the inviolability of his State was assured by the sixty-third article of the Treaty of Berlin, and he accordingly appealed to his Suzerain for counsel and help. No sooner had the French proclaimed to all Europe that the Bey was impotent to punish his own subjects, than a Tunisian force, commanded by the

heir-apparent, marched into the Hamír country, and received the submission of the tribes. But the energetic action of the Bey was destined to have no more practical effect than his own protests or those of the Sublime Porte. Without any demand for redress of grievances or declaration of war, the French troops crossed the frontier from several points on the 26th of April, and events succeeded each other with wonderful rapidity. Tabarca was bombarded, Kef and Bizerta were occupied, and sixteen days later the column of General Bréart encamped within sight of the walls of Tunis. From that moment the Hamírs disappear from the history of the campaign, and it is now generally admitted that, as a matter of fact, they were rather sinned against than sinning.

The Hamír raid was nothing more nor less than the pretext selected as a cloak for a preconcerted scheme of aggression, which has occupied the attention of French statesmen since the earlier days of the Empire. During the French advance the Bey sent protest after protest to the great Powers, and only a few minutes before General Bréart entered the Casr Essaid palace, a telegraphic message from the Grand Vizier at Constantinople informed the Bey that a speedy and satisfactory solution of the difficulty might be expected at the hands of Europe. By four o'clock on the eventful 12th of May the French outposts were pushed to within a few yards of the palace, and the ostentatious display of a battery of artillery in view of the windows of the harem was eminently calculated to second the efforts of General Bréart and M. Roustan, who at that hour, accompanied by a numerous escort and a staff of twenty officers fully armed, entered the private saloon of Muhamed Essadek. Before dusk the Bey of Tunis yielded to force, and signed the treaty which constituted him a vassal of France. The last feat of French arms was loudly applauded from one end of France to the other, and the disasters of the past were for a moment forgotten. The openly expressed wrath of Italy and the disapprobation of England were ignored; fresh assurances were given by M. St. Hilaire to Lord Granville, and France congratulated herself on obtaining so easily the possession of a virgin soil' for French enterprise, and this without any real responsibility either for the government of the country or its future.

The convention of Casr Essaid was not a month old when very alarming rumours gained ground. The troops, returning in the full pride of victory from their military excursion to Tunis, were quickly and quietly shipped to Algeria to stay the tide of revolution in Oran. The soldiers of General Vicendon had no sooner quieted the riots at Marseilles than they returned in haste to Africa in order to check by their presence a wide-spread insurrectionary movement in the province of Constantine. Meanwhile the Arab chief, Bon-Amena, was desolating with fire and sword the frontiers of the Sahara; thousands of Spanish settlers were flying for their lives, and the French general

sent to meet him was forced to place on record the humiliating confession that, unless he could command troops who needed neither food, nor drink, nor sleep,' it was impossible to overtake him. M. Albert Grèvy no sooner proclaimed the disarmament of Algeria, than General Saussier was sent to endeavour to restore order and public confidence.

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France was certainly not destined to remain for any length of time in ignorance of the dangers involved by her triumphs in Tunis. It soon became apparent that the Bey had given away what he was powerless to concede, and that the community of religious feeling existing amongst the tribes of North Africa had been greatly undervalued, if not wholly forgotten. The traditional sentiment of the Moslem was entirely ignored in the calculations of MM. St. Hilaire and Roustan, who judged of the whole Tunisian population by their scanty knowledge of the inhabitants of the capital. Surely no dream of easy conquest was ever destined to a ruder awakening. M. Roustan was hardly installed in the magnificent suite of apartments allotted to him as Tunisian Foreign Minister in the Bardo Palace, when a cry to arms was sounded all along the southern boundary of the regency. The warlike tribes of the Slasi, the Hamama, the Mitelite, and the Drid, flocked to the standard of Ali Ben Hlifa. The treason of the Bey was loudly proclaimed; Muhamed Essadek,' said the insurgents, has betrayed his liege lord the Sultan, and henceforth we as good Moslems will only recognise our Caliph.' The revolt would doubtless have broken out two months sooner if the conditions of the Casi Essaid Treaty had been fully known. The Bey was well aware of this, and from the first trembled for the consequences of his act. For a time he persuaded the Bedouin Arabs that the French troops encamped around his palace were only fugitives from the victorious Hamírs, to whom he was extending hospitality previous to sending them back to France. This story, however, did not avail him long. The appearance of French ships off Jerba and Sfax convinced the Arabs of the truth of the report that the Bey had sanctioned the occupation of the seaport towns, and this fact alone was sufficient to provoke disorders, of which Europe has only as yet heard the beginning. When the insurgents advanced on Sfax, Tunisian troops were sent to meet them. The European colony fled en masse, leaving 4,000,000 francs' worth of British merchandise to inevitable destruction. The Tunisian soldiers could not be trusted to attack their co-religionists, and were hastily recalled. The French squadron then bombarded this once thriving and prosperous town. The insurgents made a breastwork of the valuable iron-bound bales of esparto grass, mostly belonging to English merchants, and returned the fire. After an obstinate resistance Sfax was taken, but the victors only entered a heap of smoking ruins, and then over the corpses of six hundred of its defenders. To the very last the Arabs fired on the French troops from the houses, preferring death to flight.

Of the conduct of the victors I prefer to say nothing. Ali Ben Hlifa rallied his followers and retreated a few miles into the desert. There he was securely protected by a sandy waste and a July sun. He knew how powerfully the climate and the want of water would fight against the invader at Sfax. The other tribes of Southern Tunis are in open revolt, and on one occasion advanced close to the capital, whence they carried off 2,000 camels almost within gunshot of the French camp at Manouba, and effected a successful retreat, General Logerot being powerless to overtake them. The raid at Manouba is but a solitary instance of what is now hourly taking place in Tunis. One day we hear of a night attack on the French troops at Gabes, and on another of the wanton murder of a British subject at Susa. It is impossible to conceal the unhappy truth that this once well-governed, peaceful, and prosperous country is now a prey to anarchy of the most appalling description. For all practical purposes the Bey has ceased to govern anywhere outside the walls of his capital, and nothing but abject fear prevents the townspeople from making common cause with their more hardy and courageous compatriots of the tents. The French invasion was to secure the frontiers. It has turned all Algeria into a nest of sedition. The French invasion was to promote commerce. It has ruined and paralysed trade almost beyond hope of recovery. The French invasion was to bring about a financial reform. It has saddled the State with an additional debt of 2,000,000l. in the course of six months; it has given rise to enormous claims for loss of property on the part of the European colonists who have suffered from French bombardments; and it has rendered it impossible for anybody either to collect the taxes or to pay them.

Certain questions naturally present themselves for our consideration. What will France do to put an end to the present state of things in Tunis? Does France intend to confine her so-called mission of civilisation to Tunis? How does her present and possible action affect England? Electoral considerations must account to a very great extent for the mystery which exists as to the French programme in North Africa, but an expedition to the sacred city of Kairwân seems to have been already determined on. M. Guérin, in 1860, describes Kairwân thus :-"Though Tunis has been for long ages the political capital, Kairwân has always remained in the mind of the masses the religious capital of the country. It is the Holy City, par excellence, where the Crescent reigns undividedly. For twelve centuries no minister of the Gospel has entered it. Situate in nearly the heart of Tunisia, it has never been attacked by Christian troops, as the coast towns have so often been. Hence the sort of holy and mysterious aureole with which the Mussulman religion surrounds it. . . . The shrines of its Saints are equally the object of constant pilgrimage. All this maintains in the mind of the populace a fanaticism which nothing hitherto has succeeded in weakening. Its religious monuments are amongst the most venerated of Islamism.'