Diplomats Of The United Kingdom

"Casement’s belief in solidarity and cooperation between all the people of the world is fundamentally republican. It is a principle that is often ignored or diminished by the opponents and detractors of Irish republicanism. We’re not ‘Little Irelanders’. Our vision is fundamentally internationalist. We stand with struggling people of the world – and we are confident in the fact that they stand with Ireland too. In our own day and age – we reiterate our call for a global response to the current health pandemic. A global pandemic requires a global remedy. We face an enormous responsibility. No-one is safe until everyone is safe. No-one is free until we’re all equal. That is where Casement would have stood."

"Roger looked wonderfully tall and dignified and noble as he stood in the dock. He seemed to be looking away over the heads of the judges and advocates and sightseers, away to Ireland – probably his mind’s eye was fixed on some well-known spot such as Fair Head or Murlough Bay – certainly he had no look of one who was conscious of his awful and sordid surroundings…"

"In any inclusive study of the roots of modern British socialism and internationalism, Casement’s collaboration with E.D. Morel should be cited as a critical conjuncture in a tradition of English radicalism and the struggle for the fairer distribution of land."

"It was a grey afternoon. The windows gave on to the Thames, and against the grey sky the warehouses on the southern bank were, through the gathering mist, lined in an outline of darker grey and black, the tall chimneys uplifted above them. The tide was out, and beside the distant quayside some coal-barges lay tilted on the sleek mud of the river-bottom, with their sides washed by the silver waters that raced seaward. Against this picture, looking outward before the window curtains, stood Roger Casement, a figure of perplexity, and the apparent dejection which he always wore so proud, as though he had assumed the sorrows of the world."

"I think Julio Arana may claim the individual merit of having established and run for several years the biggest slave and murder pen in the world."

"I think the whole gang - Arana & President and Prefect & all - are liars and rogues. No offer Arana makes is to be trusted. If I had the money myself I'd buy the rogue out and go out to the Putumayo on a well armed yacht with a party of good shots and have some of the best big game shooting in the world. Why the devil men should go to Africa to shoot 4,000 head head of harmless gazelle or antelope with such fine beasts as Normand, Aguero, Fonseca to stalk - I can't imagine. I wonder if Roosevelt would take the thing up? Also I rather regret now I gave you the blow pipe and poisoned arrows - as I think the big Indian lad might attend next board meeting of the [Peruvian Amazon] Company with me - and exemplify on Arana and McQuibban how the poison arrow works."

"During the several years that the Arana syndicates have been controlling the Putumayo, and using the government forces in the furtherance of their lawless ends against either Colombian settlers or native Indians the local value of the services rendered by this so-called trading company to the Peruvian Government must have amounted to many thousands of pounds in the matters of passage and victualling alone. The agreement no doubt worked to the satisfaction of both parties. Messrs. Arana and Co (it is really absurd to use the name of the ineffectual London Company at any stage of the business) obtained the military help and prestige of Peru in attacking, murdering and pillaging the Colombian settlers on the Cara-Paraná in securing their rubber and enslaving fresh tribes of Indians, while the government through 'this patriotic action' of the Aranas extended the frontiers of the 'national territory' and became possed of regions to which it had not any moral or lawful claim."

"But now that I was in Barbados, with nothing to do and with no responsibility save that of recuperating from my attack of yellow fever, I stumbled upon the one man in all the world who had set himself the task of aiding the unfortunate Weetoto Indians to escape from the abominable overlordship of the Peruvian employees of a British rubber-collecting company. Sir Roger Casement was the man. It seems strange that the generous, honest, high-principled person should have died the death of a traitor during the World War. That he was slightly unbalanced I fully believe, but I am certain that he was as sincere and as honest as a man who ever breathed. There is no doubt, of course, as to his attempt to aid the Germans - which was merely his idea of aiding Ireland. But all that came later. The World War was not to come for another three years when I met Casement, quite casually, at a bar in Bridgetown."

"The evidence against the Arana brothers was indeed overwhelming, and had the slightest desire existed in Iquitos to find out the precise truth or to stop the excesses on the Indians the time for action was then when the charges were first made, and publicly made in Iquitos, with a host of witnesses at hand proclaiming their desire to be interrogated and when even Indians themselves, with the scars and wheals of flagellations upon them were actually brought from the Putumayo so that the authorities might examine for themselves these victims of the crimes denounced.""

"Against every member of the Company's higher staff, so far as I can see are not merely alleged, but have been sworn to and published in Iquitos."

"Crippen is caught too! but what a farce it seems - a whole world shaken by the pursuit of a man who killed his wife - and here are lots and lots of gentlemen I meet daily at dinner who not only kill their wives, but burn other people's wives alive - or cut their arms and legs off and pull the babies from their breasts to throw in the river or leave to starve in the forest - or dash their brains out against trees. Why should civilisation stand aghast at the crime of a Crippen and turn wearily away when the poor Indians of the Putumayo, or the Bantu of the Congo, turn bloodstained, appalling hands and terrified eyes to those who alone can aid?"

"if you ever attempt to 'Sir Roger' me again I'll enter into an alliance with the Aranas and Pablo Zumaeta to cut you off someday in the woods of St. James' Park, and convert you into a rubber worker to our joint profit"

"There is not, so far as I am aware, any specific act of cruelty or torture attributed to these [indigenous] people even by the very men who have so cruelly wronged them for years, and who so richly deserve torture. When the Indians have killed these so-called white men, they have simply slain them outright, and think what this killing has meant to them - the rescue of wife and children, of all that was dear to them. The muchachos have been brutalisied, and made to behead and shooting, to flog and outrage. They are only another instance of the hopeless obedience of these people. What the white man orders they are only too prone to execute..."

"The Indians who actually prefer their forest freedom to the whip, the cepo, the bullet and the raping of their children are spoken of in terms of reprobation as lazy, idle and worthless - and this by men who never leave their hammocks all day, and whose only "work" is to work crime. They have not cultivated a square yard of ground or done one useful thing with their hands since they came here. Their only use - their sole purpose - is to terrorise and rob. And this is the function of the paid employees; the higher staff of a great English Company! Truly Mr Arana has planted a strange rubber tree on English soil!"

"I found myself at the verge of a clearing, and saw the roof of Matanzas or Andokes Station, and the Peruvian flag flying. I decided to wait for the others, rather than to go on to meet alone and be civil to this evil-reputationed man, Armando Normand, with whom I wish to have as little and brief intercourse as possible... Found Mr Normand away at the other Station, where he lives, La China, named capriciously like Indostan, or Abisinia - which is 10 hours away, or, say, close on thirty miles."

"This Company has not got the means of paying for anything in its Provedura or Store, and yet it daily imposes onerous tasks (apart altogether from rubber collection) on the surrounding people. And they perform these tasks, patient, humble beings, with smiles and compliments and gentle speech to their oppressors. From building these huge houses (this one is fully 45 yards long and as strong as an old three-decker) ckearing great tracts of forest, making plantations of yucca, mealy, sugar canes, &c., constructing roads and bridges at great labour, for these men to more easily get at them - to supplying them with "wives", with food, with game from the chase, often with their own food just for their own pressing wants, with labour to meet every conceivable form of demand. All this the Indians supply for absolutely no remuneration of any kind, this entirely in addition to the India rubber which is the keystone of the arch."

"The true criminal is the government of Peru, far off, uncaring. Arana has been free to erect the individual acts of lawless squatters, Colombians and Peruvians, into a system of robbery under arms. The Government of Peru has stood by passive, and when called on for help (as with David Serrano and Gonzalez) ready to kill too, and extend the frontier of Peru, and get more revenue-bearing territory. The two have gone hand-in-hand, Arana, the arch criminal and the administration of the Department of Loreto.""

"The trees are valueless without the Indians, who, besides getting rubber for them, do everything else these creatures need - feed them, build for them, run for them and carry for them and supply them with wives and concubines. They couldn't get this done by persuasion, so they slew and massacred and enslaved by terror, and that is the whole foundation. What we see today is merely the logical sequence of events - the cowed and entirely subdued Indians, greatly reduced in numbers, hopelessly obedient, with no refuge and no retreat, and no redress..."

"Throughout the greater part of the Amazon region, where the rubber trade flourishes, a system of dealing prevails which is not tolerated in civilised communities. In so far as it affects a labouring man or an individual who sells his labour, it is termed peonage, and is repressed by drastic measures in some parts of the New World. It consists in getting the person working for you into your debt and keeping him there; and in lieu of other means of discharging this obligation he is forced to work for his creditor upon what are practically the latter’s terms, and under varying forms of bodily constraint. In the Amazon Valley this method of dealing has been expanded until it embraces, not only the Indian workman, but is often made to apply to those who are themselves the employers of this kind of labour. By accumulated obligations contracted in this way, one trader will pledge his business until it and himself become practically the property of the creditor. His business is merged, and he himself becomes an employee, and often finds it very hard to escape from the responsibilities he has thus contracted."

"That every word of Nordenskiöld's letter to the Anti-Slavery Society is true I am quite convinced. The entire Indian population is enslaved in the montaña and whereon the devil plant, the rubber tree, grows and can be tapped. The wilder the Indian the wickeder the slavery. Where he becomes 'civilised' and can read and write and study "cuenta" [accounts] with his "patron" then he ceases to be an Indian and becomes a "Peruvian" and himself an enslaver. As to the laws - all these South American republics have excellent laws on paper - and no sense of equity in the man behind the paper. The laws are beautiful and simple books - a fool could turn the leaves and apply them - an honest fool would make an ideal judge."

"And the charming Lizardo Arana tells me in Iquitos I shall find "such splendid Indians" here, and he feels sure the result of my journey to the Putumayo will be more capital for the Company! Yes, more capital punishment if I had my way. I swear to God, I'd hang every one of the band of wretches with my own hands if I had the power, and do it with the greatest pleasure. I have never shot game with any pleasure, have indeed abandoned all shooting for that reason, that I dislike the thought of taking life. I have never given life to anyone myself, and my celibacy makes me frugal of human life, but I'd shoot or exterminate these infamous scoundrels more gladly than I should shoot a crocodile or kill a snake."

"Caoutchouc was first called 'india rubber,' because it came from the Indies, and the earliest European use of it was to rub out or erase. It is now called India rubber because it rubs out or erases the Indians."

"When up in those lonely Congo forests where I found Leopold I also found myself – the incorrigible Irishman."

"In 1887 i spend several months on the upper Congo, and i traveled over some of the grounds i now revisit in the absence of 10 years, the country was thickly populated, frequent and populous towns, but many of the inhabitants have been killed by the government, man and woman."

"Tackling Leopold in Africa has set in motion a big movement – it must be a movement of human liberation all the world over."

"Perhaps a greater defence than their spears and blow-pipes even had been more ruthlessly destroyed. Their old people, both women and men, respected for character and ability to wisely advise, had been marked from the first as dangerous, and in the early stages of the occupation were done to death. Their crime had been the giving of 'bad advice.' To warn the more credulous or less experienced against the white enslaver and to exhort the Indian to flee or to resist rather than consent to work rubber for the new-comers had brought about their doom. I met no old Indian man or woman, and few had got beyond middle age. The Barbados men assured me that when they first came to the region in the beginning of 1905 old people were still to be found, vigorous and highly respected, but these had all disappeared, so far as I could gather, before my coming."

"Generally, a leading man fitted out an expedition with a few companions, partners in effort and initial expenditure, and with a gang of hired 'peons,' or, as they are called in that region, 'racionales' (half-breeds mostly who can read and write to distinguish them from the 'Indios', who are ignorant of all save forest lore), he journeyed to some part of the forest in search of tribes of wild Indians - 'infieles' or "infidels" - who could be easily subdued and reduced to work the wild rubber trees in the territory they inhabited. An Indian would promise anything for a gun or for some of the other tempting things offered as inducements to him to work rubber. Many Indians submitted to the alluring offer only to find that once in the "conquistadores'" books they had lost all liberty and were reduced to unending demands for more rubber and more varied tasks. A cacique or "capitan" might be bought over to dispose of the labor of all his clan, and as the cacique's influence was very great and the natural docility of the Indian a remarkable characteristic of the upper Amazon tribes the work of conquering a primitive people and reducing them to a continual strain of rubber finding was less difficult than might at first be supposed. Moreover, their arms of defense were puerile weapons to oppose the rifles of the "blancos.""

"Nevertheless the Barbadians were all engaged by Arana as "agricultural labourers" or "labourers", and if Arana gave them to Colombian "criminals", whose "properties" he has since entirely acquired, and whose system he has maintained, if not indeed developed. I cannot see but that he is responsible quite as much as these Colombian "ruffians", and to the British Government he is solely responsible for the use to which he has put the labourers recruited in a British Colony."

"I should dearly love to see these things with my own eyes - to be able to record the methods used there in this "commercial" and "industrial reclamation" of the Indians, but how can I? The Commission will hardly go to Matanzas, they say, or to Abisinia, the roads are long and full of water. To me, personally, it would be a real pleasure, but I am gravely alarmed for the results - the possible results. It might mean the murder of the Barbados men, under our eyes almost. Of course, it would be the "cannibals" or the "Savages" who had done it, or it would be the "injured husband" or something of that kind. No evidence possible of a crime. Besides, these men have never been punished for the most awful offences against humanity. Not one. They have been here for years committing the most hellish crimes, as we all now believe, and they were openly denounced in Iquitos three years ago, with many witnesses walking the streets of that capital asking to be brought before a court. And what followed? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They have either retired with a small fortune like Mr Rodriguez of Iquitos, or are still active agents of the Company, drawing very handsome incomes from their sections. Barnes says this man, Velarde, who is not worth £5 a year to any house of business, gets, he believes, fully £600 a year, and he has 4 or 5 "wives" free, a house built by the Indians, everything save European supplies, levied by crime from the surrounding defenseless population."

"Infamous, infamous shameful system."

"Of the persistent mutilation by government soldiers, there can be no shadow of a doubt, should the system maintain forced labor on this scale, i believe the entire population will be extinct in thirty years."

"On Sunday evening, natives brought me a mutilated lad, who's right hand had been hacked of quite recently, the cold thread was a century of lalu longa, a Belgian trading society, when i asked why they had not appealed to their commissar, i heard from them, well it is the commissar, it is the Bula Matari, who does these things to us."

"The Janma Sthãn or place where Rãm Chandra was born, is 1/3 of a m. to the W. of the Hanumãn Garh. Close to the door, and outside it, is a Muhammadan cemetery, in which 165 persons, according to the ‘Gazetteer’ 75 persons, are buried, all Muslims, who were killed in a fight between the Muslims and Hindus for the possession of the temple in 1855. The Muslims on that occasion charged up the steps of the Hanumãn Garh, but were driven back with considerable loss. The Hindus followed up their success, and at the 3rd attempt took the Janam Sthãn, at the gates of which the Muslims who were killed were buried, the place being called Ganj i Shahidan, or “Grave of the Martyrs.” Eleven Hindus were killed, and were thrown into the river. Several of the King of Awadh’s regiments were looking on, but their orders were not to interfere. Up to that time both Hindus and Muhammadans used to worship in the temple. Since British rule a railing has been put up, within which the Muslims pray. Outside, the Hindus make their offerings. The actual Janam Sthãn is a plain masonry platform, just outside the mosque or temple, but within the enclosure, on the left-hand side. The primeval temple perished, but was rebuilt by Vikram, and it was his temple that the Muslims converted into a mosque. Europeans are expected to take off their shoes if they enter the building, which is quite plain, with the exception of 12 black pillars taken from the old temple. On the pillar on the left of the door as you enter, may be seen the remains of a figure which appears to be either Krishna or an Apsara. There are 2 alcoves, one on either side of the main arch, and a stone pulpit, on the steps of which is an inscription now illegible. The building is about 38 ft. by 18 ft."

"[Sir Charles Elliot, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, described missionaries of all Churches as forming an] “un-recognised and unofficial branch of the great movement which alone justifies British rule in Southern Asia”. The oficers of Government have to treat all alike in religious matters, and to show no more consideration for one faith than for another, though they know right well that the only hope for the true development and elevation of the peoples lies in the evangelisation of India. Only the missionaries are carrying on that work, filling up what is deficient in the efforts of the Government.""

"During the four hundred years of Han supremacy the march of civilization went steadily forward. Paper and ink were invented, and also the camel's-hair brush, both of which gave a great impetus to the arts of writing and painting."

"[The Tao-Tê-Ching] is interesting as a collection of many genuine utterances of Lao Tzŭ, sandwiched however between thick wads of padding from which little meaning can be extracted except by enthusiasts who curiously enough disagree absolutely among themselves."

"A Chinese poem is at best a hard nut to crack."

"Dear Land of Flowers, forgive me!—that I took These snatches from thy glittering wealth of song, And twisted to the uses of a book Strains that to alien harps can ne'er belong.Thy gems shine purer in their native bed Concealed, beyond the pry of vulgar eyes; And there, through labyrinths of language led, The patient student grasps the glowing prize.Yet many, in their race toward other goals, May joy to feel, albeit at second-hand, Some far faint heart-throb of poetic souls Whose breath makes incense in the Flowery Land."

"Flowers fade and fly, and flying fill the sky; Their bloom departs, their perfume gone, yet who stands pitying by? ... Oh, let me sadly bury them beside these steps to-night! ... Farewell, dear flowers, for ever now, thus buried as 'twas best, I have not yet divined when I with you shall sink to rest. I who can bury flowers like this a laughing-stock shall be; I cannot say in days to come what hands shall bury me. See how when spring begins to fail each opening floweret fades; So too there is a time of age and death for beauteous maids; And when the fleeting spring is gone, and days of beauty o'er, Flowers fall, and lovely maidens die, and both are known no more."

"It must however always be borne in mind that translators are but traitors at the best, and that translations may be moonlight and water while the originals are sunlight and wine."

"It was on his return journey that Pao-yü's father heard of the success and disappearance of his son. Torn by conflicting emotions he hurried on, in his haste to reach home and aid in unravelling the secret of Pao-yü's hiding-place. One moonlight night, his boat lay anchored alongside the shore, which a storm of the previous day had wrapped in a mantle of snow. He was sitting writing at a table, when suddenly, through the half-open door, advancing towards him over the bow of the boat, his silhouette sharply defined against the surrounding snow, he saw the figure of a shaven-headed Buddhist priest. The priest knelt down, and struck his head four times upon the ground, and then, without a word, turned back to join two other priests who were awaiting him. The three vanished as imperceptibly as they had come; before, indeed, the astonished father was able to realise that he had been, for the last time, face to face with Pao-yü!"

"It would be obviously unfair to describe the Chinese people as wanting in humour simply because they are tickled by jests which leave us comparatively unmoved. Few of our own most amusing stories will stand conversion into Chinese terms."

"The case for European solidarity has never been stronger than it is today because the pressures piling up on Europe are themselves strong and varied. At the moment the headlines in our newspapers concentrate on certain trading arguments with the United States. Clearly we in Europe deal better with these problems when we work together, and where pressures become unacceptable we can best secure their relaxation by reacting together. Of course we should remind ourselves that our aim is not to confront the United States with our own economic strength, great though that is if we work together. Our aim must be to work out a common view with the United States, based in the case of the pipeline on a common analysis of the role of trade in East–West relations."

"He developed the conceit that Europe was “moving our way.” Those who called on him heard these words often. So did the Cabinet. They were a way of arguing that, if you took the long view, the problem between, say, Portillo and a pro-Europe man like Michael Heseltine might be said not really to exist. For Britain's objectives were coming about anyway. “The climate is changing,” Hurd told me on several occasions between 1992 and 1996. The Commission, repeatedly, was said to have got the message about subsidiarity. So had Delors and Mitterrand personally. There was now a new stream of higher wisdom percolating through the Community from its source-bed in London. Ideas that had once been regarded as “heresies, eccentricities of British thought” were now beginning to prevail, a development that made it “not sensible to back off into noisy and destructive isolation.”"

"On 2 January 1995, Douglas Hurd, as Foreign Secretary, chose to issue a statement intended to remind the British people of the "benefits of Britain's membership of the European Union", urging his party colleagues to follow suit. For a man not known to be stupid, his catalogue of "benefits" defied logic. "First," he said, "the EU brings us jobs." The EU, he claimed, "now takes 53 percent of our exports" (government data for 1995 showed this figure as only 44.6 percent). "The French," he claimed, "cannot block our lamb, or the Germans our beef." (He was shortly to discover to the contrary.) "The Italians and Spaniards pay hefty fines for breaking the rules on milk quotas." (The fines were never paid.) The EU, and NATO, had brought us "the priceless gift of nearly 50 years of peace on our continent." (The Bosnian tragedy was at its height.) "Membership has enabled us to take the European Commission to the European Court of Justice over the French Government's enormous subsidies to Air France." (When the ECJ declared this £2.4 billion subsidy illegal, the Commission reformulated its permission, allowing the subsidy to continue.) "The new principle of subsidiarity enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty is helping to reverse the tide of new EU laws." (Between 1993 and 1994, the total of new directives and regulations had risen from 1602 to 1800.) "We have now persuaded our partners that jobs should be top of the EU agenda." (EU-wide unemployment was now higher than at any time since the 1930s.)"

"His is a split personality. A deux he is delightful; clever, funny, observant, drily cynical. But get him anywhere near ‘display mode’, particularly if there are officials around, and he might as well have a corncob up his arse. Pompous, trite, high-sounding, cautiously guarded."

"My old friend and colleague Douglas Hurd was so likeable that he had no enemies. He had a quite brilliant mind and very considerable ability. He was a particularly skilful diplomat and I was certain that he would apply a soothing leadership to an overexcited and divided party, which we would need to carry us to the next election with any prospect of success. I therefore joined his campaign team."

"People are very interested in politics, they just don't like it labelled 'politics'."

"There is a danger that we legislate to feel good, not to do good. Nowhere is this truer than in social legislation. The warm glow comes quickly after passing a piece of law which is designed to raise standards for those in jobs; the chill of lost jobs because of lost competitiveness is felt more slowly... We should make our labour markets more flexible and job-friendly, and secure greater skill levels and cost control. That means not introducing new limitations on the labour market."

"Now we've signed it – we had better read it!"