The Wanganui Chronicle. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1945. THE “ESPERANCE BAY” INCIDENT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 264, 8 November 1945, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1945. THE “ESPERANCE BAY” INCIDENT

■pilE shipping of a large number of Indonesians back to Batavia at a time when that country is in a state of turmoil, without taking precautions to see that the voyageurs before embarkation, were unarmed, is not adequately explained away by the Press release published in this issue concerning the Esperance Bay “incident.”

The problem which confronted the Australian Government was to send back speedily to their own country the Indonesians that, had congregated in Australian ports. These individuals seem to have been a mixed lot, being mostly seamen with some politicals among them. It did not appear, however, that there was any urgency to transport these strangers back to Batavia when Java was in a state of turmoil bordering upon civil war. The initial mistake seems to have been in sending the men back without first negotiating with some Netherlands East Indies Government official or otherwise, to discover whether such action was timely. Why such negotiation was not entered into is not as yet explained, but explained it should be, even if it means acknowledging that somebody has blundered. The placing of a large number of Indonesians upon one ship carried with it dangerous possibilities against which the authorities should have been apprehensive. That the situation became ugly, to use no other term, was established when the master of the Esperance Bay demanded a warship for escort. Masters of ships do not easily call for escorts, and it may be assumed that action in this instance was not taken out of fear of possibilities but rather because of probabilities. It is an elementary precaution to search for arms where there is any suspicion of their being carried aboard a ship in an unauthorised manner. Once suspicion was aroused it would have been an easy matter to establish a search of each individual’s “dunnage” before he embarked, but it would be a very difficult task to engage in a search when tempers became inflamed on board ship. The Indonesians naturally would be suspicious of being treated unfairly in some manner, and when the question of their destination came into question an uneasy state of mind was natural to them. If it be true that the Indonesians anticipated that the ports for which they were destined would be under Nationalist control by the time they arrived, then the whole of the business seems to have been the subject of much better organisation on the part of the Indonesians than on the part of the Australian authorities. It is unfortunate that in what is probably no more than a series of accidents Australia came to bear in the eyes of the Dutch authorities the appearance of aiding the Nationalist movement by bringing up the reserves. But a series of accidents of this nature occurs chiefly when the Minister in charge is not sufficiently in control of his department.