The Baron de Billing, formerly French representative at Stockholm and
at Tunis, has made some extraordinary state- ments, at a meeting called in Paris to denounce the Tunis Expedition. He declares that M. Grky declared to him that he 'would not accept Tunis as a present, and that M. Gambetta wished the Tunis question "chloroformed," saying that if no Bey existed, it would be necessary to invent one, and repu- diating any action whatever in the matter, little or great, for at least six years. He also states that the Bey offered of himself a much better treaty in January, including the disbanding of his army, the admission of a French column, the cutting of the Isthmus of Cabes and the transfer of the posts and telegraphs to France, if only M. Roustan might be withdrawn. The telegram with this proposal was stopped, either by M. Roustan or the French Foreign Office, it is not quite clear which. One is bound, after recent experience, to distrust statements by diplomatists out of work, and M. de Billing is not a Republican, but his speech increases the necessity for a Parliamentary inquiry into the Tunis affair. It looks very much as if the French Govern- ment, or at all events part of it, had been used to gratify cer- tain private interests, and to give M. Roustan a diplomatic victory over the Italian Consul.
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