LOUIS-PHILIPPE D'ORLÉANS.
During the preceding autumn the state of Ireland had been exceptionally bad. There were many who believed that the attempt was being made, by a cold-blooded calculation, to work on the sentimental instincts of Mr. Gladstone's character. The verb 'to boycott' had been introduced into the English language; murders and agrarian outrages had been frequent; but witnesses and juries were so terrorised, that prosecution was found to be difficult and conviction impossible. In charging the grand jury at Galway on December 10th, the judge had commented on the fact that, out of 698 criminal offences committed in Connaught during the four months, thirty-nine only were for trial, no sufficient evidence as to the other 659 being obtainable. On November 2nd, fourteen members of the Land League—including five members of Parliament—were arrested and committed for trial on the charge of inciting to crime. The facts were matter of public notoriety, but the jury refused to convict, and the prisoners were discharged. The Government was compelled to act; and on January 24th Mr. Forster moved for leave to bring in a bill for the better protection of person and property in Ireland. After an unprecedented obstruction on the part of the Irish members, and after a continuous sitting of forty-one hours, the Speaker summarily closed the debate, and the bill, commonly known as the Coercion Bill, passed the first reading on February 2nd. On the 3rd, twenty-seven of the Irish members were suspended; and the bill, having passed through the succeeding stages, finally became law on March 2nd.
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From M. B. St.-Hilaire
Paris, February 6th.—I am happy in your approval, and permit me to add that I am proud of it. I know the value and sincerity of your judgements. You have a long experience of politics, and every reason not to be deceived even by the most obscure complications. There was certainly an intrigue on foot against the Cabinet, but I believe a stop has been put to it for some time to come, and we shall now probably have all the trouble of the general election, which will be very advantageous for the republic; but, from a personal point of view, I am anything but charmed with the prospect, finding myself chained up for several months. Nothing could be more vexatious, though I put as good a face on it as I can.
We do not understand here how a political assembly can endure what your Parliament has put up with. Thanks to Mr. Gladstone, the Speaker is now armed with sufficient power, and I take for granted he will know how to use it. But Ireland, terrible Ireland, is always there. If an insurrection break out, it will be necessary to have recourse to repressive measures, more or less similar to those of Cromwell. I do not believe that there would be many in Europe to blame you. How can you do otherwise? Of their own free will, the Irish sink to the level of brute beasts, which are to be tamed only by force.
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The next letter, and many others following it, from M. Barthélemy St.-Hilaire, refer to the action of France in regard to Tunis, as to which there was a strong feeling in England both then and since. France, it may be admitted, had grievances; whether she would have taken the steps she did for their settlement if the English Government had been stronger in its foreign policy may very well be doubted.
For many years, almost since the first establishment of the French in Algeria, there had been differences between France and Tunis, over which the French pretended a protectorate which neither Tunis nor Constantinople would allow. There had been also many commercial difficulties—some honest, some dishonest; but what led to the acute stage which these difficulties and differences assumed in 1881 was the purchase, in 1880, by the Société Marseillaise, for 100,000 £, of a large tract of land known as the Enfida—subject, it had been stipulated, 'to the provisions of the local law.' But the purchase was no sooner publicly declared than its legality was disputed; a Maltese—therefore an English subject—named Levy claiming that by the local law he had a right of pre-emption and was prepared to buy. This right the French Government denied, and alleged that the intending purchasers were really Italians—private or official—Levy being only a man of straw put forward to strengthen their case by the English name. Lord Granville, the then Foreign Secretary, instructed the English Consul at Tunis that it was an affair of Tunis law, and that he was not to interfere beyond seeing that the English subject got what the law entitled him to. The French Government, however—of which M. St.-Hilaire was the exponent—refused to be bound by Tunis law, and on May 1st landed 10,000 soldiers, and took military possession of Tunis, disclaiming all idea of being at war with Tunis, but being obliged—they said—to defend and maintain their just rights. They were neither going to annex Tunis nor to rebuild Carthage.
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