THE RUBBER OUTRAGES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 9, 11 June 1913, Page 5

THE RUBBER OUTRAGES.

THE COMMITTEE'S IEFORT. SEVERE CENSURE. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. London, June 9. The report of the' .committee which enquired into the Putamayo atrocities has been issued. It seroraly censures the British directors for their culpable negligence in regard to the labor conditions exacted from the Indians. The directors, the report continues, should not lightly have exposed England's good name to contempt. 111-treatment of Indians was not confined to Putumayo, which was only a shockingly had instance of conditions existing over wide areas of South AKftriea. The offlcers of Che company were a gang of ruffians and murderers, who shot their victims from a sheer lust of blood. They had burned, tortured and violated them in a spirit of wanton devilry. FOLLY, BUT NOT -CRIME. Received 10, 11.25 ,p.m. London, June 10. The Putumayo Committee, in their' report, decline to believe that the Indians are bloodthirsty and ferocious savages. They are a simple people, naturally of a friendly disposition. The British Trading Company was not entitled to spend money on the conquest of the Indians. The money spent was ultra yires. There was no evidence that the British directors were individually parties to any overt act which would expose them to charges under the slave trade Acts, but they were culpably negligent concerning the labor conditions prevalent. Messrs. Guggins and Rein ought to have known the " devilish conditions under Which they were making money. Messrs. Lister and Kayes were in a different position. They were apparently only a decoy duck for the investors, and did not know the language with which the Board often conducted its proceedings. They deserve censure for taking directorships under conditions so humiliating. Arana and other vendors had a knowledge of the atroeities perpetrated at Putumayo, The committee does not think that the Peruvian case revealed any defect in the company law, but the existing slave laws should be consolidated .and modernised. Moreover, the principle of extra-territorial crime should be extended to enable British offenders in forced labor cases to be brought to trial in their own country.