"STERILE SLOGANS"

Evening Star, Issue 25750, 25 March 1946, Page 10

"STERILE SLOGANS"

DUTCH CONSUL REPROVES WATERSIDERS

HOLD-UP OF RELIEF SHIPS

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, March 23. "If the waterside workers only realised how little such big expressions as ' self-determination'' and ' independence ' meant to 99 per cent, of a happy and contented Indonesian people, they would not force the doubtful benefit of their sterile slogans on them," said the Consul-General for the Netherlands, Jonkheer Dr Van Panhuys, to-day, in a statement in reply to Mr T. Hill, secretary of the New Zealand Waterside Workers' Union. Mr Hill, he continued,, had said that the New Zealand people would be interested to know what duty there could be for the police on board a mercy ship. " None, of course," replied the Con-sul-General, " but this was not said, and could not possibly be understood." He pointed out that according to the agreements with General (MacArthur and Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the civil administration in the reoccupied territories in the Netherlands East Indies was in charge of the Dutch, and that included police duties. So far 11 relief ships had left Australia for. the Indies, and the cargoes had been distributed to the native population where they were most needed, and part had been sent to internment camps when these could be reached.

This had always been the policy of the Dutch, and had been undertaken under the auspices of the British command, mainly through Red Cross observers. Publicity officers from Australia had confirmed the appalling condition and the need for help. Nevertheless, the reliability of such assurances was still being doubted, and continued suspicion existed as to the destination of shipments. Dr Van Panhuys said that Mr Hill should realise that trucks and motor cars were essential to the transportation of supplies and cement for the construction of floors in hospitals. Such suspicions were unjustified, and indicated a lack of good faith in the past. The present, actions of the waterside workers had aroused doubt about their sincerity in pretending to help the Indonesians. Such doubt was particularly justified when it was realised that M. Kupers, a prominent Netherlands trade union leader, had implored his Australian fellow-workers by cable to despatch every ship. No controversy on that question existed between the Dutch trade union movement and the Dutch Government. It seemed, Dr Van Panhuys added, as if the waterside workers preferred to favour the [political aims of a few thousand well-fed Japanese-sponsored, armed, and paid terrorists, and thereby sacrifice many millions of starving people who no longer received the rice which the Dutch Government used to procure in the four months between the harvests, and were now suffering from disease in consequence of the breakdown of the Dutch health services.