RUBBER HORRORS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1740, 3 May 1913, Page 19

RUBBER HORRORS.

JULIUS CAESAR ARANA. "THE LAST MAN FOE LIQUIDATOR." Mr. Justice Swinfen Eady, in the Chancery Division, in March, made a compulsory order to wind up the Peruvian Amazon Company, whose trading in rubbar in the PutumayO district has given rise to charges of cruelty to Indians. The Judge, refusing to entrust Senor Julius Caesar Araria with the liquidation, said he was the last person to be in any way connected with .the winding-up. Senor Arana was present in Court. . The petition for compulsory windingup was brought by four shareholders. Mr. Russell, K.C., - for-the company, read an affidavit by Senor. Arana stating tliat the abuses reported by Sir R°E® r Casement had been committed without his knowledge, and he could not have foreseen the possibility of their happening. Since the liquidation of tho company the position of affairs had been perfectly satisfactory. He accepted the P oSlt !°" of liquidator only on the representation of several of the. largest creditors_ that he was the only .person with the qualmcaticus meccssary to rcscuo tho -company from financial disaster. The Judge said Senor Arana and his three partners Were jointly concerned in selling a business that had for years before the salo been concerned in collecting rubber in the atrocious.manner, disclosed in the company's own report, and it was the profits arising from that business and in part from the rubber so collected that were set out in the prospectus of the company. It as Quito impossible to acquit all tho partners of the firm of knowledge of the way in which tho rubber was being collected. The atrocities must have been brought home long before the company's commission departed, and if Arana was personally unaware of the extent to which these atrocities were being committed he ought to havo known and ascertained. There ought to bo a compulsory order,' followed by the fullest investigation, and Senor Arana was the last person to whom the conduct of that investigation ought to be committed. 11l this circumstances ho mado a compulsory' order. ,