PUTUMAYO REPORT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15824, 24 July 1913, Page 4

PUTUMAYO REPORT.

TERRIBLE ATROCITIES PROVED, BRITISH DIRECTORS CENSURED. (Fnoil Ocb Own Cobeesi'o.vdukt.) LONDON. June 11. Tho report of tho Select Comnntteo on the Puutmayo atrocities analyses tho evidence with great thoroughness, and the conclusion is reached that Senor Arana, together with other partners, waa responsible ior tho atroc:ties perpetrated by his agents in tho Putuinayo. The committee, nowover, is satisfied that ho did not communicate his knowledge of them to tho British directors before tno Truth revelations. Tho Jiritieh directors are severely censured for culpable negligence as to the labour conditions thai prevailed it,dor the company. "They should not lightly," the committee 6ays, "have exposed to risk the good name of Jingland," but no evidence was found that they made themselves individually parties to iuiy overt act which would .expose them to a charge under tho Slavo Trade Aets. >

With regard to ti-e sufficiency of the present law to deal with euch conditions in the future, the comm.ttee reports that existing enactmwits might be somewhat extended 60 as to cover tho gravest offences against the person and prac;k"c6 of forced labour, which are akin to t-lave-y. The British directors of the comparty were Mr 11. M. Read,' Mi' J. liussell Gubbins, Sir John Lister-Kaye, and Mr T. F. Medina, jun.; but Mr Medina only joined the board on .July 28, 1909, seven weeks before the publication of tho first article in Truth, and owing to ill-health ho couW not appear before the committee, which points out that the individual responsibility of each director varies. THK BRITISH DIRECTORS. Tho committee adopts tho statement of Sir Edward Grey a? to tho unquestionable fact of tho atrocities, and in several places it pays a high tributo to Sir 11. Casement, through whoso inquiry and report the truth as to the atrocities was established. It reviews the history of the Peruvian Amazon Company and tho system of slavery with which it was oonnected.

In reference to the British directors the report says;—" Your committee finds no ovidenco that the British directors mado themselves individually parties to any overt act which would expose them to a charge under tho Slavo Trado Acts. But it cannot absolve them from tho charge of culpable negligence as to tho labour conditions that prevailed under their compuny. They had inherited a system of doing business of tho real nature of which they were confessedly ignorant. It was worked by agents of whom they knew nothing. They wrote to tho Foreign Office that 'tho board had taken and will continuo to take all the stops open to it to ensuro that the [company's business in tho Putumayo district shall bo carried on in a proper mannenand with all possible consideration towards the natives.' And Senor Arana, in a letter to the shareholders sent by the company to the Foreign Office, declared that 'the greatest caro is taken in the selection of tho agents and employees of the company in those remoto regions.' No care at all was taken, and the employees were, in fact, a gang cf ruffians and murderers, who shot apparently from sheer lust of bicod, or burnt, tortured, and violated in a spirit of wanton devilry. A photograph of tho wild, naked forest Indians whom they employed hung . on tho walls of their board room, and thero was a list hanging in tho room of tho Indians working in tho sections. But no discussion ever took place at board meetings about tho labour question or the treatmont of labour. Mr Road stated that 'it never crossod his mind'to inquire into tho treatment the Indians at all.' Sir John Lister-Kaye similarly repudiated tho duty of inquiring as to the labour conditions, except to satisfy himself "as to tho sufficiency of labour, unless and until some complaint were made."

The committeo uses the words'" reprehensible neglect," and expresses the opinion that the directors ought to have investigated the system of their company either before or immediately on assuming office. "Directors who merely attend board meetings and sign cheques or limit themselves to a special brancli of the business cannot cscape their share of the collective moral responsibility when gross abuses under their company are revealed." BLAME APPORTIONED. "The directors then assumed positions to which are inseparably attached responsibili- | ties they failed to discharge, and in tho opinion of your committee their conduct oil this head is deserving of severe censure. They should not lightly have exposed to risk the good name of England. They ought to have realised the responsibility of being pioneers df commerce in a new and uncivilised region, where they must liavo known that tho authority' of Government was at least very weak. Mr Road admitted that 'he had seen Indians shot in Lima and no troublo taken about it '—at all events 'in revolutionary affairs'; and that ho was aware, that things were 1 a bit lax' as compared with the standard of the British Empire—though he had nover heard of grave abuses. It is hard to believe that Mr Gubbins, with 38 years of business life in Peru, or t.hat Mr Read, with his knowledge of Peruvian conditions, had not had warning of an attitude towards the too common in Peru; and tho responsibility of these directors on that account is proportionately great. Sir •Tohn Lister-Kaye, on the other hand, had no knowledge eitlior of the country or of the conditions, or of the trade in which liis company was engaged; he did not know tho language in which the proceedings of the board, of which he was a member, were frequently conducted. 110 deserves censure for taking a directorship under conditions so humiliating, and for allowing his name to bo used as an inducement to attract investors into a company of whose business and proceedings lie knew nothing at all. About Mr Medina's responsibility the _ committee hositates to say anything in view of his continued illhealth and his inability to appear before it."