THE RED RUBBER REPORT.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1813, 28 July 1913, Page 3

THE RED RUBBER REPORT.

$ DIRECTORS CENSURED. "EMPLOYEES A GANG OF MURDERERS." The report was published Inst month of tlin Select Committee of the Houso of Commons which was appointed to inquire into the atrocities in the Putumayo district of Peru, South America, alleged to have been committed by agents of tho Peruvian Amazon Company. The crim.cs with which the men were charged included "murder, torture, violation, constant floggings of a barbarous nature, and other acts of ■unspeakable cruelty," and the cases wore said to bo not isolated but part of a system. Tho following are the chief findings of the committee:— Tho reality and gravity of the atrocities have been confirmed by the inquiry. Tho directors did not direct, and are deserving of 60vero censure. Senor Arana knew of, and was responsible for, tho atrocities of his agents. Ho did not communicate his knowledge to the British directors before the "Truth" revelations. He subsequently repudiated all knowledge of them. Tho four British directors, Mr. H. M. Read, Mr. J. Russell Gubbins, Sir John Lister-Kaye, and Mr. T. F. Medina, cannot be held responsible for anything occurring before September, 1907, the date of the formation of the company to take over Senor Arana's business, and their individual responsibility begins at different dates. Many of tho coiyiany's principal offi cials were unquestionably guilty of the most revolting atrocities against In. d.ians. Tho committee considered whether the directors could be hold criminally liable ■under the Slave Trade Acts.

Mr. Guy Stephenson, Assistant Direc< tor of Public Prosecutions, told the committee that British subjects, if parties to tho commission of the offences by overt act in foreign countries, would bo triable in British courts under thsse Acts. There is 110 evidence that the British 'directors were individually parties to any overt act which would expose them to a charge under the Slave Trade Acts. They were culpably negligent as to the labour conditions. They had inherited a system of business of the real nature of which they kn»w nothing. Sir John Llster-Kaye knew nothing either of the country, or of the conditions, or of the trade. He did not even know the language in which the board often conducted, its proceedings. He deserved censure for taking a directorship under so humiliating conditions and for allowing his name to be used as an inducement to attraot investors. The company cannot be convicted of a felony, but maj be made civilly liable for wrongs dono by its omployoes. The employees were "a gang of ruffians and murderers, wbo shot apparently from sheer lust of blood,' or burnt, tortured, nnd violated in a spirit of wanton devilry."