THE WILD FAUNA OF THE EMPIEE 



51 



PRESERVATION OF THE FAUNA 



AFRICA FROM THE POINT 



SETTLER. 



By Lord Hindlii>. 



OF BRITISH EAST 

 OF VIEW OF A 



This is a subject on which, during the present state of transi- 

 tion from the Foreign Office to the Colonial Office, it is not very 

 easy to write ; because I am not sure which laws and regulations 

 have been really put in force, and which have only been talked 

 about. 



When the settler first began to arrive, he was in many cases 

 looked upon as an undesirable being, whose sole object was to 

 slaughter game and break laws, and he was too often spoken of as 

 a ' land-grabber ' or something worse. In some cases he was not 

 a desirable person by any means, but as a class he had to suffer 

 for the shortcomings of a few. The first licence to kill game 

 issued to a settler cost £10, and allowed him to kill so many 

 animals a month (five a month, ten of one species a year, Royal 

 game excluded), but did not allow him to kill as much as an 

 official whose licence cost no more, or to protect his crops or 

 homestead against the depredations of wild animals, large or 

 small. 



When the rush of settlers came, the local administration had 

 no power to change the law, which became practically a dead 

 letter, many neglecting to take out a game licence, and frequently 

 not even a licence to carry a gun or rifle. This state of affairs 

 Was impossible, and ought never to have arisen. Lord Delamere, 

 to whom we as settlers for many reasons owe a great debt,_was 

 the first to do more than protest against the existing regulations. 

 His protest took the form of killing one zebra beyond the number 

 His licence entitled him to, to test the legality of the regulation 

 which prevented a settler killing animals damaging his crops, 

 fences, &o. He was fined, and the magistrates' decision upheld 

 on appeal. Almost immediately after this decision a new law 

 came into force, allowing the settler to take out a licence to kill 

 game other than Royal on his own land for £3, and also to kill 

 Royal game found damaging his property ; but the skin, horns, or 

 ivory of the Royal game was to become the property of the Crown. 

 Another law was talked about as likely to come into force— that 

 lor .£,'10 a settler would be entitled to kill the same as an official, 

 Which is only fair and as it should be. If these last two laws have 

 been put in force, the settler has nothing to cavil at, except that it 

 is, perhaps, hardly likely that he would take the trouble to preserve 

 the skin of, say, a zebra, or do very much more than advise the 



