94 
A COLONY IN THE MAKING 
CHAP. 
the shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza is at least as suit¬ 
able for plantation land as any on the coast. More¬ 
over, even if it were possible to separate entirely 
plantation land and agricultural land, it is hardly 
possible to find an area on the Highlands as small 
even as 100,000 acres in which the land is of so 
similar a character that the same legal conditions can 
be tortured into applying to the whole block. 
It is undoubtedly this extraordinary diversity of 
land that proved in the past the great stumbling block 
to a satisfactory and uniform code of land laws ; and no 
one can deny the very great difficulty the problem 
presented. At the same time, even when every allow¬ 
ance is made, it is to be feared that no unprejudiced 
person can deny that, until the appointment of the 
present land officer, the land laws were both conceived 
and administered in such a way as to delay very seriously 
the advance of the Protectorate. The reason of this 
faulty administration in the past is not far to seek. 
The officers in charge of the land department were not 
selected for their knowledge of either land conditions 
or even of agriculture in its simplest forms, but for 
proved ability in some other sphere. The heads of 
the Land Office were in a word absolutely ignorant of 
what they were expected to do or how to do it. This 
ignorance caused the deepest suspicion of every 
candidate who applied for land. He was at once 
looked on as a criminal in disguise, and the crime 
of which he was suspected was a desire to make money! 
It may not receive credence but many will bear me 
out that some five or six years ago or even later 
the suspicion that an applicant had the audacity 
to hope to make his holding pay would have 
very seriously prejudiced his chance of obtaining the 
