The policy of England as regards the Tunisian Question has been almost a diplomatic enigma. She sang a song of triumph over the Firman of 1871, still declared Tunis “an integral part of the territory of the Sublime Porte in 1880, then told the Bey just one year later to cheerfully assist at his political suicide, and finally, just six days _after_ the convention of Kasr-es-Said, promulgated an Order in Council, to be cited as _the Ottoman (Tunis) Order of_ 1881, the preamble of which justifies its existence by the consideration that “by treaty, capitulation, grant, usage, sufferance, and other lawful means, Her Majesty the Queen has power and jurisdiction in relation to Her Majesty’s subjects and others _in the Ottoman Dominions!_” I have endeavoured to tell the story of recent events in Tunis essentially from an English point of view, and to mete out impartially the share of praise and blame ascribable to the different contending parties. In all probability I shall please neither of them. The present result of the expedition in the Regency itself can be described in a word, _chaos_. Mr. Whitaker has very fairly summed up the situation in his useful Almanac for 1882: “Last year,” he writes, “Tunis was a tributary province of the Ottoman Empire, and in a state of profound peace. At the present time, it may be considered as a turbulent, informally annexed dependence of France, nominally under the dominion of the Bey, but really under the control of a French Resident.” The prime mover of the mischief, M. Théodore Roustan, has quitted the scene of his exploits, and M. Paul Cambon reigns in his stead. Upon him will fall the arduous task of evolving order out of chaos, and cleansing an Augean stable of no small dimensions. He promises well, and Europe will await with pardonable curiosity and some impatience the initiative which must sooner or later follow his study of existing difficulties. It must be remembered in England that the indemnity to the pillaged and bombarded Maltese of Sfax yet hangs fire, that none of the families of the British subjects massacred in cold blood at Oued Zerga or on the Kairwán road have been recompensed for their irreparable loss, and that no satisfaction has been given, or even proposed, for the judicial murder of the British Consular Agent’s servant at Hammamet. In these serious matters it is to be hoped that M. Paul Cambon will pour oil on the troubled waters.