CHAPTER X 



LAND AND THE LAND LAWS 



Until the last two or three years, if it was desired 

 to bring an execration into the mouth of a settler, 

 of course an unlikely contingency, it was only necessary 

 to mention the Land Office. 



No doubt the average settler did not, and does not 

 yet, make sufficient allowance for the extreme difficulty 

 of the task of fair and equitable land settlement in this 

 country. The extra difficulty of the task may be 

 taken as due to the extraordinary difference in quality 

 and condition of land in every portion of the Pro- 

 tectorate. This divergence is so wide that it is 

 absolutely impossible to lay down any definite code of 

 rules that will apply to one small district or area even, 

 let alone to the whole Protectorate. 



Thus the same conditions that apply to land on the 

 coast suitable to rubber could not possibly be made to 

 apply to a sheep-farming area round Lake Naivasha. 

 Yet if, as has been tried, a different set of rules 

 entirely for coastlands and highlands be drawn up, it 

 will prove almost impossible to say where the line 

 of division is to be drawn, and furthermore the land on 



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