DUTCH ANXIOUS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 90, 16 April 1940, Page 6

DUTCH ANXIOUS.

future of indies. IF HOMELAND CONQUERED. grave economic effects. (®y MARC T. GREENE.) fSpecial to "Auckland Star" and "Baltimore Sun.") BATAVIA (Java), March 19. The Netherlands Indies, source of the life-blood of the Kingdom of Holland with their contribution to the home country of more than 250,000,000 guilders annually, await with anxiety the development of affaire in Europe and the outcome of the German threat to the Low Countries.

Holland's Oriental empire covers a land and sea area almost as large as the United States. The island of Java, hardly equal in area to the State of Xew York, yet populated to the extent of more than 30,000,000 of people, and so the most thickly-settled region on the globe, is the specific source of the aforesaid life-blood. Its super-rich soil produces tea and coffee and rubber, sugar and tobacco and quinine and kapok (tree-cotton), minerals and fruits and rice and maize and copra. Its millions of native labourers receive from three and a half to forty guilder cents a day for ten to fourteen hours' work. That is wly it is a source of such huge profit to the Dutch.

The other principal islands are Sumatra, with its rubber and tobacco •states, Celebes, as yet only partially developed, but full of possibilities, Borneo with its vast wealth of oil, and New Guinea, where oil resources possibly the largest in the world arc just now commencing to be tapped. Colonisation in Borneo and New Guinea, two largest islands in the world, is confined mo6tly to the coast, and the interiors are still half unexplored.

In view of the foregoing the anxiety of the European populace is explainable. Including the direct revenue and the indirect, that is to say, salaries, the large pension list, imports, and so on. what may accurately be called the Netherlands Indies' contribution to the Dutch kingdom has rarely fallen below the aforesaid 250.000.000 guilders, and has been known to reach 400.000.000. at present exchange more than 210,000,000 dollars. Difficulties of Defence. Clearly here is one of the richest colonial prizes in the world, possibly, taking the Oriental empire as a whole, the very richest. When the increasing imperialistic aggressiveness of Japan manifested itself in the attempted conquest of China the Dutch in the East were very much disturbed. They envisaged a speedy termination of the China "incident" with unqualified success to Japan. There seemed reason to believe that, emboldened by that success, the Japanese would turn their eyes southward, mainly in the direction of lands where their economic penetration has been increasingly effective through tho past decade. Most of the retail trade of the Netherlands Indies is in Chinese hands and a good twothirds of their stocks came, until a couple of vears ago, from Japan. But there was little the Dutch could do about it, really. To defend the vast archipelago would require a navy far beyond the capacity of Holland. The reliance, then, in the event of attack from the north, must be upon Britain, through tho Singapore Naval Base. Security in that reliance lay, and still lies, in the obvious fact that Britain could not permit the Dutch islands to fall into alien hands, whether the alien be of East or West. Consequently, it is fairly well known that an accord exists between Britain and Holland for prompt assistance to the Netherlands Indies from Singapore, and perhaps from elsewhere, in the event of attack.

That assurance comforted the Dutch so far as they were concerned about Japan. Nevertheless, it was decided to build immediately three big battle cruisers and materially to increase the Netherlands Indies air defence. The coet of all this when completed, will be in the neighbourhood of 300,000,000 guilders. If previous policy continues to be followed the expense of the naval increase will fall upon Holland herself, and that of the air be divided between the home country and the colonies. The cost of the Army in the East is borne entirely by the colonial GovernmentIncrease In Air Strength. The Army is small and consists largely of native troops, while the present naval forces is negligible, amounting only to a couple of small light cruisers and a few destroyers, none modern. Vast increases have, however, been made in the air arm of the defence even since the commencement of the Sino-Japanese war, and several hidden bases in remote parts of the archipelago are supposed to have been built. The present inhibitions upon photography are a£ strict as in Japan, and anyone arriving in the colony with a camera of any sort, however modest, i- required to have it "sealed" and to leave it on the ship, if just passing through the islands, or in charge of the Customs if making a longer visit. With the growing weakness of Japan in respect of the unsuccessful China venture, the spectre of Japanese aggression has practically been laid, in the Dutch islands. It i« felt now that the only possible danger is the remote chance of the Japanese Navy, always bitter in its rivalry to the Army and restive over its relative inactivity in the present war, going on a desperate rampage of its own when at last the fate of the China undertaking is sealed. If Holland la Subdued. So far as the European position goes the situation of the Netherlands Indies will be a curious and delicate oue if Germany advances into Holland and succee<Ls in overwhelming it. This, iu the view of the officers and crews of no less than 21 German passenger and cargo vessels at present interned in Dutch East Indian ports, is exactly what is going to happen preseutly. The fact that in such case these ships liecome the property of Holland and their crews prisoners seems to di.-turb the hundreds of (Tcrmans now interned in the several islands of the archipelago curiouslv little. Yet there would be very smail chance of escape for them and nothin? that they could do for their countrv.

The Dutch 111 Java and the other island's confidently assert that Germany cannot van<|iii>h the low countries. because of tlie system of defence by fl.>odi".-- Hut even if thi> could bo surmounted they profess to believe that a Holland in Cerman hands would not materially affect the Oriental pos-es-sions. These would carry on as usual until the end of the war in Europe with its presumed certain defeat tor Germany, after which the present statu* quo would be resumed.