Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/235

 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONDITION OF TUNIS. 191 notwithstanding the uncertainty of the titles and the risks of lawsuits. A great many fresh purchases will probably be made in the near future, when by the adoption of the " Tor reus " Act, introduced from the Australian colonies, tho formalities for the transfer of land will be greatly simplified. The beginning of the French occupation of Tunisia presents a rema;kable contrast to that of Algeria, by the rapidity with which the French obtained possession of the agricultund domains. The total area of the land which, in Tunisia, yearly passes into the hands of French proprietors, is already greater than in the whole of Algeria. The cause of this difference between these two conterminous countries is due to the fact that in Tunisia the purchasers buy the land directly from the native proprietors, whilst in Algeria it is assigned to the colonists by the Government after tedious administra- tive formalities. But although the French property has increased much more rapidly in Tunisia than in Algeria, it is much less democratic in its essential characteristics. In Algeria there are veritable colonists, that is to say, men who themselves handle the spade, bring up their children in the furrows, and mount guard over their crops. They form, even more than the soldiers, the real strength of French Algeria, for they have settled there of their own free-will, and made it their second home. Instead of these sturdy colonists and small landed proprietors, the European purchasers in Tunisia are chiefly representatives of financial com- panies, agents of absentee capitalists, or else, in the most favourable cases, enterprising men who are in charge of vast tracts of land cultivated by foreign hands. The work of colonisation, properly so-called, by the French peasantry has no chance of success except on the western plateaux, where the similarity of the physical conditions on both sides of the frontier tends to produce analogous social conditions. The in)portant work of replanting the country has been commenced only in the Jerid dunes and along the railway from Bona to Guelma. In the Jerid the object has mainly been to solidify the shifting sand-hills, whilst the railway company is engaged in the acclimatisation of new plants. Of the four hundred thousand trees which they have had planted in their domains, the majority are Australian acacias, which yield an excellent tannin, and also a species of eucalyptus known as the " blue gum-tree." A new oasis is being developed near the Wed Melah, in the Cabes district, thanks to the artesian wells sunk by the explorer Landas. But on the other hand, the disafforesting of the country still continues, and the work of destruction by far exceeds that of restoration. Entire pine forests, near the hamadi of El-Kessera, have been destroyed solely for the sake of the bark. The contrast between the two kinds of property in Tunisia and Algeria, is equally striking in the methods of cultivation. Vhil>t at the commencement of the colonisation, and up to a recent period, the Algerian farmers followed in the steps of the French peasants, endeavouring to obtain from their land the various kinds of products necessary for the support of man and beast, such as corn, roots, fruit, and fodder, the Tunisian planters devote their attention almost exclusively to viniculture. Agriculture has thus changed its character and become mainly an industrial pursuit, and tho evolution which has taken place in the economic world, in consequence of the concentration of the capital, is shown in Tunisia by agricul-