AUSTRALIA SEEMS TO TAKE SIDES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 268, 13 November 1945, Page 5

AUSTRALIA SEEMS TO TAKE SIDES

NEWSPAPERCOMMENT CABINET APPARENTLY NOT WITH THE DUTCH (Special Correspondent—N Z.P.A.) Recd. 5.5 p.m. • Sydney, Nov. 12. Diplomatically the Australian Government is now in the Dutch-Indo-nesian fight, "right up to its neck,” as one political writer puts it. The Australian Government, did not want to enter the fight, its attitude being that it was a private struggle and could remain so, but the Dutch believe that the Australian Government is taking sides because of its attitude to the Indonesians and their Australian sympathisers. The Commonwealth Government rejects this, but still undenied is a report that the Dutch Minister in Australia, Baron yan Aaersen, had said he was receiving no co-operation from the Federal Government. In diplomatic circles it is stated that Aqstralian-Dutch relations are “sensitive.”

The “Sydney Morning Herald” comments: "Ever since the trouble loomed, Canberra has allowed not only Dutch transports but even mercy ships to beheld up while the Indonesian strikers have been treated with a consideration which has bordered perilously on open support. If the Australian Government lacks that sense of continuing its obligation towards the Empire’s Dutch ally, which Mr. Attlee has expressed on behalf of Britain, at least it should bestir itself to assert some authority within its own sphere for the preservation of neutrality in a quarrel emphatically not ours.” . The Leader of the Federal Country Partv, Mr. Fadden, has, in the past week, made repeated attacks on Commonwealth arrangements for transporting 1400 Indonesians to Java on the Esperance Bay.

The Prime Minister, Mr. Chifley retorted that the criticism was unwarranted, and statements hbout the conditions on the liner were irresnonrible. It is clear from Mr. Chiflev’s remarks that he is not shaken in his conviction that his policy is strictly "nnn-intervention.” One of Mr. Fadden’s demands was that action should be taken under the Crimes Act against Communists organising the Australian workers against the Dutch. On this demand • Mr. Chifley is silent. I In editorials dealing with the scenes jon Svdney wharf when the Communlists demonstrated against 1600 Dutch itroops who were on route to Java, the I "Sydney Sun” and tha “Sunday Sun” roundly condemn the Communists for I their action and the Government for its inaction. The "Sunday Sun” has this to say. "A dingo minority of population went to the wharf to make n miserable demonstration of which all real Australians will be ashamed. It mighr have been expected that the Prime Minister would have expressed his regret to. our Allies. Instead, h<? has. retired into the refuge of silence.” The “Sun”. says: "Dutch troops who enlisted to join us in oqr fight against the Japanese are penned aboard - ship and insulted by screaming ocmmunists on the wharf, and a shameful story goes out to the world to blacken Australia’s name while the craven-hearted Government stands by inactive, without one word of condemnation. Why were those un-Aus-tralian hate-screamers and apostles o* anarchy ever allowed on the wharf? The Government owes more than an apologv to the Dutch—it should lake courage to act. so that no such indignity shall ever again be suffered by a friend and ally on Australian soil,”