ON FREEDOM'S ALTARS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 41, 18 February 1942, Page 4

ON FREEDOM'S ALTARS

Rather than let them fall intact into the hands of the enemy and so provide him with an essential of war he most needs, the Dutch in Sumatra have destroyed the oil wells and refineries and stocks at Palembang, their chief source of supply in the Netherlands East Indies and one of the world's greatest oil plants. The loss at Palembang, after the similar devastation voluntarily wrought at the Borneo oilfields of Tarakan and Balik Papan, is no mean sacrifice to have made on the | altars of freedom. These three fields between them comprised 88 per cent, of the oil wealth of the .Netherlands East Indies, and represent, it is stated, a total capital outlay of £125,000,000, of which Palembang accounted for at least half. War has no more striking individual instance of "scorched earth" policy to record, and the loss for the moment must fall on those who supplied the capital for the development of these great oilfields, which, incidentally, have contributed a fair proportion to New Zealand's consumption of motor fuels and lubricants. In these respects of origin and ownership the "burnt'offering" of Palembang and its sister installations differs from the "scorched earth" policy applied to the naval base at Singapore and the earlier example of the Dnieper Dam, the pride of Soviet collective achievement, blown vp1 to foil the advancing Germans, but the spirit that prompted the destruction in each case remains the same. It is the spirit of unflinching -resistance to the enemy at all costs, that deems no sacrifice too great if it will deprive the enemy of. the means of victory and so improve the chances of his ultimate defeat.