PACIFIC DEFENCE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 20 May 1925, Page 3

PACIFIC DEFENCE.

DUTCH MAY SPEND £10,000,000

FIELD FOR TRADE. Proposals now before the Dutch Parliament provide for the expenditure of £10,000,001) to strengthen Holland’s naval rorces m the East Indies, according to Mr E. E. Th. van Blonimstein, general manager, of the Samarang Insurance .Company, Java, who is now visiting Melbourne. Mr van Bloinmstem said these steps were coincident with Great Britain’.g intention, to spend the same amount on the Singapore- naval Ijumj, from which much could he inferred. Apart from Dutch colonial sentiment, being strongly pro-British, Britain could not safely" bold Singapore unless Holland continued to occupy the East Indie’s., Holland’s position in the Pacific, was bound up with that of Great Britain, towards wh-om she could never be .antagonistic. Without her rich Eastern! possessions, Holland’s, leading position among the world’s nations would rapidly lessen and descend to-that of Denmark or some other Scandinavian country. The great wealth, together with the. climatic and agricultural features, of the Dutch East Indies were more, appealing to the Japanese than those ofthe Commonwealth. Holland had more to fear from possible Japanese aggression than Australia. Hence the (desire to add three more-fast cruisers and a flotilla of submarines to the Eastern fleet.

“Few Australians,” declared Mr van Blommstein, “are aware that a. year ago Holland could have permitted the foundation of a new German colony at the very doors of the Commonwealth. The Duke of Macklenberg, a Teuton ■nobleman deposed by the war, and a brother of the Prince Consort of' the Netherlands, submitted to the Dutch Government a plan providing for. a big German company- control and develop Holland’s New Guinea:possessions. The proposal was rejected because oup Hover ament. considered such a concession would be a disturbing, element in British and Dutch international relationships.” .......