2 A COLONY IN THE MAKING chap. 



variety ; a variety of climate, a variety of soil, of 

 human inhabitant, of flora, of fauna, and finally of 

 possibilities for British enterprise. 



It is essential to lay considerable emphasis on the 

 restricted size of our country, more especially with 

 regard to its possibilities of colonisation. A glance at 

 the map reveals the fact that the Protectorate contains 

 a great many square miles. It is, in fact, equal in 

 size to Great Britain and France taken together. 

 The map, however, does not reveal how much of this 

 area is in reality excluded. There are the compara- 

 tively unhealthy regions on the coast and round 

 the shores of the Great Lake. There are the 

 huge desert tracts. There are also the reserves for 

 forest, for native, and for game. In none of these, as 

 things stand now, can the white man live and have 

 his home ; and if you take them away, the area that is 

 left, and the area on which in the main we base our 

 hopes, is restricted. Ten million acres will swallow up 

 most of it. Ten million acres, even with the fringes 

 and additions of debatable land which will some day 

 be of a certain economic value, do not constitute a 

 large area on which to form a colony. It is absurd to 

 think of it as on the same plane as Canada, Australia or 

 South Africa. Yet such are the advantages that this 

 small area offers, and such are its possibilities, that it 

 is not premature to suppose that on it will live a 

 population comparatively dense and essentially pros- 

 perous, forming not the most insignificant portion of 

 the British Empire. One thing is fairly certain, and 

 that is, that at the present day it offers prospects to a 

 certain type of colonist that can be nowhere excelled if 

 indeed they can be equalled. 



At present — it is early days yet — the Protectorate 



