CASEMENT'S CAPTURE

NZ Truth, Issue 568, 6 May 1916, Page 5

CASEMENT'S CAPTURE

Malefactor or Madman ? Ir v7ho is this Sir Roger Casement?" was the fired at "Truttv's" rep. on the day the cables announced the arrest of that rebel, traitor, knave or fool, m an attempt to land arms m Ireland. Loyal Britons , arid patriotic Irishmen everywhere are "strafe" -ing Sir Roger" m the most lurid slanguage that has ever fallen from the tongue of Saxon or Celt. Very few either m Britain or Ireland butside of Government official circles had ever heard of the man before the outbreak of the present war. But having heard of his several traitorous acts since hostilities commenced, all but one m*a thousand are Baying that now that he has been caught he ought to be shot At least that's what the mob says. By "mob," "Truth** does not mean, what the day-lies mean when they use the term. They invariably apply it m a derogatory sense to a gathering of workers. "Truth" applies to the thoughtless crowd composed of all classes who RUSH TO CONDEMN without hearing the other side. But first let "Truth" say that it has no sympathy whatever with the acts Sir Roger Casement has been 'guilty of since the outbreak of the, war. Know* ing his unblemished past as we do, we are horror-struck to read of his terrible lapse, and it is hard to convince the writer of these presents that the would-be Irish "Ulbej^toir is not as mad as the proverbial March hare. It may be that he is not. but that.Ger-

man gold and his own cupidity have been tho causo of hia corrupUou, und that ho is really and truly tho traitor the newspapers raoko him out to bo. But even so, whatever of his past coreor Uuit la good, ought at the present timo to bo remembered unto him for righteousness. Who Is Sir Roger Casemunt? Sir Roger Caßement Is a C.M.G. Ho has ttlhni tho post of British Consul Jo the Congo, Santos, Para and elsewhere. He was for three years Conaul-Geueral at Rio do Janeiro. It was while m tho last-named post that Sir Roger mado a report WHICH SHOCKED HUMANITY, It m Kidii that while m Rio do Janeiro ho fluttered from sunstroke, and subsequently retired owin^ to ill health, lils retirement took place m 1913, but during 1912 ho was instrumental la exposing tho most brutal bit of British commercial history over rocorded m tho paffOH of a Government Blue Book. Some few years ago the whole civilised world was profoundly stirred iat thfl revolutions made concerning tho brutal treatment meted out to the nattvos m tho Congo. Tho cry of Hhamo and horror, no doubt, wo» tho result of deep-Hcatod resontmont that m Uiis twoutieU) century, crimes could bo perpetrated, that were unparoJlolod m ull human history. So far us tho average Briton was concomed, tiiH sympathy wan genuine, Neverihclwwi m our prosa. which condemned m tho roo«t sciithlntf lan^unge tho Bolglque, Germnji and Aumrlun companies roAponiiiblo for tho outru««d In queHtion. there soomed to be mi unUartono of tho "Thank God Wo Britona aro not as theso men." And then a utrango and shocking thinjf occurred. The Rev. Cunon Hensley Henson imide a powerful Indictmont aguln«t three Britteh ex-Oirectorrf of th© Peruvian Amoxon Company, a company controlled largely by ]*HU«h capitallHUi, Tho Rev. Cunon's chanfu throw not only tha liritlxh. but the rcadlngr public of the civilised world Into a state of the mo«t Intense abhorrpuce and dcteittation Of Lht> gha«tly crltnoa revealed to have Ikuui cummlsslonod by nnd executed (it tho into rent of Urltinh dividend huntw«. As wa* lo be expected, the «.'x-Ulnrctor» concerned, placed tho rnnlt.»:r m tho hund* of tholr Kollcltom. und nn juti'inpt wan made to «ot Iho Omon to withdrew, at leant his IminimtloDrt rcjs^rdlnjr the Kuid «har«>holtlcrti jxsmonany, and to extract from hltrt. under the threat of an action for criminal libel, an apology for having gis'ea uturanco to tho staumont tm-

puted to him. Instead of which, to his honor be it noted, the CANON STUCK TO HIS GUNS, arid refused to retract, or even to modify m the slightest degree, the charges he had m&da. The solicitors acting for the ex-directors declared: Our. clients had no knowledge of what had occurred previous to the issue of the shares. To this Canon Henson made reply:— The same persons had control of the business at the time of the outrage, and, therefore,- the proclaimed ignorance of other direc- ■ tors is culpable, and not permissible m the case of men whose business It is to know. , ■ And, so, the threatened criminal libel action against the Canon was dropped. Fortunately, for British fair play and the cause of humanity, the matter was not allowed to drop. Sir Roger Casement, the British Consul-General at Bid de Janeiro, was. commissioned by the Government to make a fall and exhaustive investigation Into the condue^ of the rubber trade along the *mmnn The publication of a Blue Book, containing Sir Roger Casement's report of the atrocities committed by the emissaries and agents of the company m Question, is a shameless story of . ." ; . ■■. ■ : ;■' ■;.> > *•- ;•;■■ \ LURID LUST AND GHASTLY , GREED. The Amazon Rubber Company's sphere of influence lies m the Putumayo district of the Amaaon. According- to Sir, Roger Caaemenf a account, all the horrors of the ' Congo pale into insignificance when compared with the fiendish <£nd infernal cruelties inflicted on men. women and children on the Amazon. We are told that not one single Indian escaped the most brutal beltings, by whips made of heavy thongs of twisted tapir-hide, and that the backs. of the women and children were shockingly scarred and cut, and covered with weals. Many died under the lash, and many others were In such a state that they were rendered useless for further work, and were Bhot to put them out of their pain. A subordinate native agent of the company, who had himself been kept imprisoned m chains for a year, was given his liberty on condition that he undertook to do the floggings. The report says: He improved on his masters and killed scores, and cut off the ears of hundreds and did other things that some of the worst Peruvians say they could not tolerate. Sir Roger's narrative further asserts: .The f 'British Company does not appear to have scrupled to lay the burden of feeding the majority of the employees very largely upon tho surrounding T>opulation. who were x compelled by illegal force to ! labor m a variety of forms for the 1 maintenance and profit of tha.comi pany. In the exercise of this llle--1 gal compulsion, frequently accompanied by gross outrages upon the I Indians, including murder, floggings, and torture, many of. the Barbadoes men played a constant part. The foregoing statement is backed up by a list of hundreds of individual cases of OUTRAGE AND TORTURE, the reading of which would make the blood of even the most callous/ boil with anger. A ' . -. So Canon Henson's Indictment of the British directors was fully established and that, too, by tho report issued under the direction of the Government of his Britannic Majesty King George the Fifth. But m support of Sir Roger Casement and Canon Henson, some astounding revelations appeared subsequently m the "El Liberal," of Madrid, from the pen of Dr. Romero Fernando*. Dr. Fernandez is a nepnew of Ribaldo Romero Quinonea, ' the well-known Spanish Sociologist For some time he was m tho employ of the arraigned company, the Amaaon rubber exploiters, bat shocked by the dastardly outrages which he saw being committed all around him, ho resigned. On resignation, he received an appointment as Medical Officer to the Provincial Commission then eettlng out upon what proved to be an exhaustive investigation. One example of ' THE DEMONAICAL DEEDS discovered by the Commission will be Bofliciont: Within fifty metres (nftv-flre yards) of the establishment, and m tho month when It wa* customary to bring m the rubber from various districts; the Indians, with their wives and children, brought their burdens and delivered them for acceptance and later for transportation to iQultos Port There they arrived their shoulders showing open wounds and their bodies black and blue from whlppintf^jiven by the will to servants oX the company on the way down. On this particular occasion three hundred Bara and WUoto Indians and their families remained within the premises, and their white employers, for "sport" and other reasons, decided to burn them alive. They first compelled thetr victims to mako an enclosure of wood and wire one hundred and thirty metres m clccuroferehce. Then wood was piled up and saturated with petroleum, the Indians were driven initide, and tho bonnro wn» lighted, while the murderers, arms In hands, shot down those who tried to escape. Tho day following the dead bodies wero collected, and the cremation was completed. The ract» were fully proved by those who witnessed the holocaust and gave evidence. Sotory, Wltoto chief, escaped, and. from safe cover, saw his parents and brother cremated by whites, who, ho declared, drank some liquids which drove them mad. During ray investigation I found a Boml-circle, one hundred and fifty metres across, which was a pestilence of half-calcined human remains, with skeletons of both uexen, of various ages, and nuraborlota bullets among them, which fully confirmed the statement* of eyewitnesses, who also pointed out the place whoro tho remains were covered over. One ot th« witnesses was. until wo arrived thera, tho principal oftleer of the company at La Chorrara. Dr. Fernanda, who M33T SIR ROGER CASEMENT during his lour of investigation, Is of opinion, from what he himself discovered, Unit tho records contained In tho Bluo Book issued by the British Government "are but a, faint reflection ot tho truth." AH of which jroes to prove that the "holier than thou" attitude of tho average Briton Is but tbt* outcome of hid Isrnomnco of a fact herein clearly demonstrated — That dividend hunting under any flair 1* as rap&dou* as the circumstance!* will allow, it cannot to more, and it certainly teldom U less, whether the lin^r It aeknowlodff«s be that of Briton, UeUt<*d SUUok, Q«rmany, FY»ne«. or any other, not excluding the Jolly Uog^r! Casement MAY HAVE TURNED TIIAJTOR for G*rm&« gold, or ho may have gono mad owing: to a. rocrudsuc^nce of the ttffocU* of his unfortunate sunstroke, but (i»v«n if tho woral b« true, tho thoroufb* nam with which ho prtxwcutod hl» InvMtiftiUons Into tb* truth of tha all«g-

-cii Putumayo rubber atrocities, and the i fearlessness with which he exposed and denounced the crimes, even of his own countrymen, must stand for a considerable amount on the credit side whan, the future historian strikes an unbiassed balance of his accounts, ,' v " That Sir Roger Casement is a traitor there can be little doubt. As a traitor he must meet a traitor's fate.. He, may have the excuse of being an Irish patriot, and it is just as well to remember that he is a descendant of a Protestant Irish family, but his patriotism to 1 Ire- 1 land has proved itself A traitbrism to the Empire. We find from a statement made by Casement m America that: After making arrangements to have a first consignment of arms landed m Ireland I went to America, m order to complete the work of obtaining the

financial support of Irish nationalists there to get arms, just as the Ulster movement had obtained ITS ARMED STTPPORT from the anti-Irish elements of England, I left Ireland m the beginning of July, 1914 (when war was never dreamed pf)» and toward the end of that month I addressed meetings of Irishmen In Nor. folk, Va>, and m Philadelphia. The latter meeting synchronised with the. successful landing at Howth of tho riOfts my friends had bought abroad* and whioh led to the firing by the British garrison upon the people of Dublin. Were [further proofs needed of the unchanged and unchanging determination | of all British Governments to treat Ireland aa a conquered province this outrageous military assault, of July 26, on the inhabitants of Dublin furnished them. . ■ . • ..•'.. „ i Next, Casement shows the sort of "Wild Irishman." or. at any rate, unpatriotio Britisher he is. when ho goes on to say: 4 Then came tho war. On August 4 the British Government declared war on Germany, the pretext having been carefully arranged beforehand.' I had long believed that British fear and jealousy of German naval progress would bring war, and I had very frankly expressed, m Government circles as elsewhere, my opinions as to the rightfulness or even sanity of English antagonism to Qermany. • - He hold that the war was wrong, and holding that view he went to Germany, where, "Truth" presumes, he held that "right" was to bo found. CASEMENT'S DECLARATION PROCEEDS; I hoped that tho German Government might be lnducod to make clear Its peaceful Intentions toward Ireland and that the effect of such a pronouncement m Ireland Itself might be powerful to keep Irishmen from volunteering for a war that had no claim upon their pat- ! riotiaro or their honor, w With this aim ohiefly m view, I came to aermany~(ho IS writing .from Berlin, date January 23, 19ie>— In November, 1914, and I succeeded In tho object I had set before rnyaelf, Tho German Government declared openly It* good will towards Ireland. Tho rest of my stay lh Germany was and Is but tho necessary outcome of that Initial act. I sought, bo far as one man could achtave It, to keep my own people fre* from participation In a groat wrong. HATRED TO ENGLAND OR ENGLISHMEN I had none; my hope In coming to Germany was that 1 might be the mean*, to somo extent, of keeping Ireland's son* In peace ut horno — and whoever helped In any measuro to do that would do a better thing, I knew, than help'tofill a million graves. As wo have boon permitted to learn from Germany, tho Huns wero glad to got rid of him, and thoy got rid of him as wo all 'know with tho result that Sir Roger Casement Is now confined la the Towor of London. it i« inton>Btin£ to nato. and for others to learn, that Casement h«u» quite a large number of relatives, distant and otherwise, In New Zealand, p'artloularly 1 m Auckland.