Acquiring a reliable and adequate labour supply was a continual problem for the Zululand sugar planters and the securing thereof featured prominently in their farming activities. When Zululand was opened to white settlement by the Zululand Lands Delimitation Commission in 1905 one of the principles accepted was the granting of small farms (from 204 hectares for Class I farms to 448 hectares for Class III) to individuals under a system of personal occupation and leasehold title. None of the big sugar or milling companies were allowed to obtain any land grants although they were permitted to establish sugar mills to serve certain concession areas, e.g. J.L. Hulett & Sons Ltd at Amatikulu. Consequently, all these small individual landowners in Zululand competed amongst themselves for labour. There was no combined or joint recruitment by Zululand planters as existed for the gold and coal-mining industries or such as the recruitment of Mpondo by commercial recruiters or labour organizations for cane-cutting in the Natal south coast regions. A further complicating factor and added restriction to the acquisition of an adequate labour supply was that the sugar growing areas of Zululand were in a malarial belt (the low-lying coastal area of Zululand stretching roughly from the Thukela River all the way north into Mozambique, which was also the area most suitable for sugar cane cultivation) and recruitment from outside of this region was for health reasons, from time to time, prohibited by government legislation.