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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