y. "If new settlers see land
near water they will buy it; but they come to the country with slender
capital, perhaps two or three hundred pounds, and cannot afford to sink
wells in the desert; but if someone will raise that water for them, and
sell the land, it will be taken at once. The people who settle,
supposing they are English, will constantly keep English influence equal
to the Boer."

RHODESIA IN THE HANDS OF LAND GRABBERS.

"Some existing African Companies hold farm lands," remarked the
interviewer. "Ought they turn their attention promptly to the
agricultural development of those lands, instead of confining their
attention so exclusively to mineral wealth?"

"Certainly," said Mr Stanley. "Take, for instance, the Willoughby
Consolidated. They have an enormous acreage of land. The people of
Bulawayo wanted water, so a certain number formed a company to make the
waterworks. They had to buy about 6000 acres from the Willoughby
Consolidated to protect their watershed. Supposing these people had not
bought the land for the sake of the waterworks, the Willoughby
Consolidated would have kept all this vast acreage to themselves, and
would have developed it only according to the necessities of the
neighbourhood, or sold it to some settlers who wanted to live there.
Most of Rhodesia has been divided in that way by the people who grabbed
at the territory, so that poor settlers, the bone, marrow, and sinew,
are frightened by the prices."

"Do you, then, think that the best farms are already allotted?"

"One who was only in the country such a short time as myself cannot go
into all these small details. He can only say that his impression is
that the people complained that most of the best lands had been taken up
by the great companies. Miners are disposed to hold very cheering ideas
in regard to the minerals, and more miners come in than agriculturists.
Therefore it strikes me, seeing those miners come in in such numbers,
that something has been left undone; the responsible authorities ought
to have seen that the proper settlers who could feed those people were
induced to come at the same time. Earl Grey or some other Director
should be asked if the Chartered Company had kept habitable land in
Rhodesia which might be sold for farms; if they had reserved sufficient
farming acreage for the wants of a farming population, or if they had
sold it all to the great companies. It would be people like Earl Grey
who