CHAPTER XXXI 



GAME RESERVES 



Opinions with regard to the extent and character 

 of the means by which the game animals of the 

 Protectorate should be preserved are many and 

 various, and the subject is periodically discussed with 

 considerable heat. The poles of such opinions are 

 represented on the one hand by those who would 

 exterminate at once, without distinction, all the larger 

 fauna with the view, at some distant and visionary 

 date, of filling their place with the settlers' flocks and 

 herds ; and on the other by those who would make 

 the country nothing but one vast playground and 

 game preserve, regardless of the progress and growing 

 congestion of the human race. Between these poles 

 range ideas and suggestions of every kind. Perhaps, 

 however, the collective opinion is, as it should be, 

 sober and reasonable ; certainly a sporting community 

 such as form the bulk of the population will be averse 

 to authorising greater destruction than is absolutely 

 justifiable. 



Summarised, popular opinion runs somewhat on 

 these lines : the prime consideration must be the 

 benefit accruing to the human race, whether black or 

 white. Where the presence of game at all or in 



excessive quantities is deleterious to the actual well- 



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