RUBBER SCANDALS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 47, 13 July 1912, Page 8

RUBBER SCANDALS.

APPALLING CONDITIONS IN PERU. SLAVERY AND BRUTALITY. It-is a shock to our civilisation (says the London Daily News) to hear it alleged that the hideous regime which has so long disgraced the Congo has almost its replica in the treatment meted out to the natives of the forests of the Amazon in Peru by the ag«nts of the rubber companies. These "Indians," as they are always termed, belong to the ahoriginal tribes of the almost impenetrable forests at the source of the Amazon on the eastern side of the Andes, and are a very different race from that conquered by Pizarro, whose descendants, with their quaint, almost Tibetan features, form the native population of the narrow but best known portion of the Peruvian territory be-! tween the mountains and the sea. In the fastnesses of their luxuriant forests, where the rank vegetation means fever and probably death to most white men, "they have for centuries lived a quiet, unmolested existence, and are therefore by nature quiet and unwarlikc, so that they are all the more likely to fall the victims of barbarities, of which, it is said, rubber agents are guilty.. The only town of size in this district is Iquitos, where the headquarters of the rubber industry are situated. Scattered throughout the forests are 45 other stations, to which the natives of the districts have to bring their toll of rubber gathered in the forests. Each subagent is assisted by a number of armed "sentries," mostly low-caste Peruvians, who, it is alleged, if the requited quantity of rubber is not brought in by the Indians, mercilessly punish the offenders by flogging, mutilation and even brutal murder. A missionary from Cuzco, the nearest Protestant mission station to the forest region, speaking to a Daily News representative with regard to the allegations of cruelty made against the agents of the rubber companies, said it was a difficult matter to know exactly what did take place in the unfrequented Montana 1 (i.e., forest) region. It was commonly acknowledged, however, that a very definite amount of slavery was in existence, the plan being to visit a native village, make most of the able-bodied men drunk, and before they recovered their senses to : carry them off to the forests to collect the rubber. Scant payment is made in goods, but care is always taken to keep the natives in debt so that the agents, who, unfortunately, are mostly low-class Englishmen and Americans, have a com-