SIR ROGER CASEMENT.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13730, 19 March 1915, Page 2

SIR ROGER CASEMENT.

Owing to the exigencies of the censcrship in England, the public have never been given a clear idea of facts i underlying the Casement case. Sir Roger Casement was, until 1913, British Consul-General at Rio de Janeiro, and is the author of the famous Government report on the atrocities connected with the Putumayo rubber industry. He served in the British Consular service from 1895 until a little over a year ago. He was made a C.M.G. in 1905, and was knighted in 1911. He is an Irishman, having been born at Dunleary, County Dublin, on September Ist, 1864, and the allegation has been made that when in Germany after the war broke out he placed himself in communication with the German Government with a view to arriving at some understanding about Ireland. The matter was first made public late in November, when there reached England copies of the "Norddeutscher Allgemeine Zeitung," one of the German Government's official journals, in which a statement was published to the effect that Sir Roger Casement had been received at _ the German Foreign Office and had asked for an official explanation of Germany's attitude towards Ireland. As a sequel to this, so it was termed by the paper, Germany issued an official manifesto, in which it stated, among other things: "The German Government takes this opportunity cf declaring to the Irish nation that it only seeks the welfare of that nation, its country,- and its in-

stitutions. The German Government declares it has never had any intention of capturing or destroying any institution whatsoever in Ireland. If in this struggle, which Germany has not sought, the chances of war should bring Gorman troops to the coast of Ireland, then they would not land as an army of invaders who came to rob and desU-oy, but as a fighting' power of a Government clothed with only goodwill towards the Irish nation, the national welfare and liberty of which alone Germany. desires." The matter was taken up officially in England, and it was untimately decided that a formal investigation should be held. It h pending this investigation that Sir Roger Casement's pension has been suspended, as announced by Sir Ed> ward Grey in the House of Commons.