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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