PERU AND THE PUTUMAYO HORRORS.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."] S/R,—You have been good enough on several occasions to give prominence in your paper to my efforts on behalf of Western South America, and many of your readers have shown their warm appreciation of my scheme. I would ask you, therefore, to allow me to point out the following facts in connexion with the present agitation regarding the terrible doings in the Putumayo rubber fields.
It needs a scare such as this or a Titanic' disaster really to rouse this country! For twelve months I have been endeavour- ' ing to bring home to our countrymen the need of strong, energetic effort to redeem these out-of-the-way places from the shipwreck into which they are so likely to fall when left with- out any of the refining and uplifting influences of life.
Iquitos, the centre for the Putumayo and other rubber dis- tricts, is one of the very places for which I have been pleading, and to which I have drawn attention repeatedly in my lectures all over this country. I am longing to be supplied with the means to start there a. definite centre of work—religious, educational, and medical.
My work is, at present at all events, almost entirely amongst our fellow-countrymen; but here, as everywhere, their influence is powerful; and who can doubt that the best way to render impossible the recurrence of such inhuman acts as those of which we have been reading is by raising the tone of public opinion in these places. And how better can this be effected than by the establishment of such agencies as are proposed in my scheme ?
Moreover, I am in touch with the Peruvian Government, and can confidently count upon their goodwill and assistance in the forwarding of such work amongst our people. At an interview with the President at Lima I fully explained my scheme, and was accorded the warmest sympathy, and both he and the Peruvian Minister here in London, Senor Eduardo Lembcke, have assured me of the high esteem and honour in which those of our nation are held in Peru, and of their readiness to stand by us and help us in any way in their power.
Such work as is proposed at Iquitos is, of course, but a small part of my whole scheme. In other centres in Peru, and at such places as La Paz, Quito, and Bogota, the capitals of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia, I am desirous of establishing clergy, schools, and nursing homes, as well as strengthening our present centres of work throughout Chile. In all this I am supported by the various Governments in question, and in some cases have their promises of land and subsidies for its development.
Our opportunities all through this wonderful string of countries on the great Pacific coast, so rapidly developing and so shortly to be revolutionized by the opening of the Panama Canal, are truly splendid. Shame on us if we let them slip !
The £100,000,000 of British capital invested in these West Coast countries, bringing an annual income of £8,000,000 to these shores, surely represents a sufficiently strong claim for turning to Great Britain for help. Now that public attention is again called to these parts, I take fresh heart, confidently hoping that at last many may realize and respond, not only to the urgent claims these countries are making upon us, but to the call to use to the full the unique and glorious opportunities which are ours throughout Western South America.—I am, Sir, Sic.,
L. F. FALKLAND ISLES.
The Lodge, Sandy Lane, Guildford.
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