CASEMENT ROGER: (1864-1916) Irish Patriot, Revolutionary and Nationalist, executed for treason. An intriguing ...

CASEMENT ROGER: (1864-1916) Irish Patriot, Revolutionary and Nationalist, executed for treason. An intriguing A.L.S., Roger Casement, four pages, 8vo, n.p., n.d. ('Thursday morning', c.1911-13), to [A.G.] Gardiner ('My dear Gardiner'). Casement announces 'I could have a quiet yarn with you on Saturday next I find' and continues to suggest meeting in the afternoon at Gardiner's private home, further writing 'I enclose a letter (no longer present) I wonder if you'll have space for it. It is long I know but to the point too. I hope something from it - a splash from one of the suggestions. The signature is wholly fictious - a sort of hybrid corruption of my name. Any name will do - & if you prefer to put Robert Lynd's to it I shan't object. You need not be afraid of any libel suits if you print this. I'll see you through that I can promise you if anyone of the P[eruvian].A[mazon]. Directors dared to take action. But they won't - they'll only shiver in their skins for fear of what else may be coming'. In a postscript penned at the head of the first page Casement writes, 'Do publish this letter. I shall get the Duke of W. on to the job perhaps! I'll try. I've broken ground in that direction & this will aid'. VG Alfred George Gardiner (1865-1946) English Journalist, Editor & Author who campaigned for a minimum wage in industry as Chairman of the National Anti-Sweating League. Casement's letter surrounds his involvement, alongside A. G. Gardiner of the Daily News, in the exposure of crimes committed in the Amazon by the Peruvian Amazon Company in their use of slave labour for gathering wild rubber. Casement had calculated that the harvest of some 4000 tons of rubber had resulted in 30,000 deaths and had already made the British Government aware of his findings, but now wanted to reach a wider audience with Gardiner's assistance.