PATIENCE IN BRITAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 268, 13 November 1945, Page 4

PATIENCE IN BRITAIN

IT is ironical that Britain should be in the position she is at present in Java. Having fought heroically against the arrayed might of Germany and Italy in Europe, and having done her full share against Japan, she now finds herself pledged to the solemn duty of restoring peace in portion of the Empire of a brave ally, the Dutch. We in New Zealand, not so well informed on the rights and wrongs of the situation, are apt to accept too many things at face value. It was the same in Greece. We were hasty to condemn, reluctant to approve. On the surface the same story presents itself in most of these countries now being freed from the yoke of an enemy. There is a tremendous amount of sympathy for the men and women who stayed in those countries and fought the foe, suffered pain and hardship at his hands. But to give those people the right of armed conquest within their own land simply means that the very causes for which the war was fought are being overlooked. If those people seize an opportunity to take control at the expense of a minority, the sense of fair play Britain stands for is threatened. The people of Java, and nobody else, should say what rule should apply, and what they say must be expressed on a voting paper, not at the end of a gun. Nobody is silly enough to suggest, surely, that Scottish and Indian regiments are in Java to better their own lot. They have had a hard task to fulfil. It was approached as tactfully as possible, and there is not the slightest doubt that Whitehall was aware of every approach to the situation. But the rule of the mob was applied against British patience and tact. Britain contributed one of her best brigadiers because she handled the situation with all the tact possible, realising, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Indonesians have some claim to a higher status in the government of their country. But when tact fails, when the infinite, sometimes annoying, patience of the British becomes exhausted there is nothing left but to apply the firm law of discipline—these people must be taught a lesson. We hope that that lesson will have the desired effect and will be as a thrashing to a wayward child. In the minds'of those who fired the guns on Sourabaya certainly was something of the same mood of a parent whose duty had to be done. We who look on from this safe distance, all of us ready, sometimes too prone, to take sides, should remember that the guns which fired on Sourabaya were fired with the full knowledge of Whitehall—of Mr. Attlee, Mr. Bevin, Mr. Herbert Morrison and their Government —just as the guns which fired on Athens had the full backing of Mr. Churchill and those he was leading at the time. We sympathise with the British commander in Java, try to place ourselves in his position, and wonder what we would do had we to make the decision and not him. Looked at from here there is room for a belief that Britain is sometimes too patient, too conciliatory, too friendly with the wrong people. Yet it is better to be that way, in the long run, than to be ruthless and stamp out the wrong people .by one ill-thought, hasty action. Java is a difficult country and we should bear with the men whose job it is to restore tranquility where there is unrest, uncertainty and mistrust.