DEEP DETERMINATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 June 1942, Page 4

DEEP DETERMINATION

OF NETHERLANDS PEOPLE AT HOME AND IN INDIES. FAITH IN RECOVERY OF ALL THAT HAS BEEN LOST. “There are things which the Germans have not been able to destroy —things that the Japanese will also endeavour in vain to extirpate —the spirit of liberty, justice and tolerance. Our flag still flies over our warships and over hundreds of merchantmen on the seven seas, over our territories in Surinam and Curacao. But spiritually our flag also flies over our very real share in humanity’s heritage. In the future we shall again build bridges between the European continent and the Anglo-Saxon nations and betweeA the East and the West.” —In these words Mr G. H. C. Hart, SecretaryGeneral in the Netherlands Ministry for the Colonies, spoke of the confidence with which Netherlanders look to the future. This was said when communications with Java were finally severed and the Japanese had claimed that they had occupied the island. “All that matters at present,” Mr Hart went on, “is that we fight on with all our might and soul, with such resources as still reihain at our disposal and as we can still procure in order to oust the Germans from Holland and the Japanese from the Indies; that we stand by our allies in the struggle against the greatest evil that has ever befallen humanity; that we go on flint-hearted-ly, ruthlessly and ruggedly, in order to lay the foundations for a world in which love and law and peace 'may live.” ALL-IN PARTNERSHIP.,

From the day when Holland, after striving in vain to keep neutrdl, felt the full blast of the Nazi blitz to the present when in Holland and in Java they were keeping ruggedly in the fight, the Netherlands people and fighting men alike, have been inspired by an all-in partnership with the fighters for democracy. They have not spared themselves, nor flinched when fortune went against them. In the words of Mr Hart, the Dutch are ready to sacrifice all for victory. The spirit of comradeship has been shown in battle, and in the quiet determination in which they have carried on the fight in Java itself since the Japanese occupation. It was shown in the early stages when the Netherlands Indies graciously placed at the disposal of Australia and New Zealand as a hospital ship, the beautiful liner, the Oranje, then just on her maiden voyage from the homeland to the Easts

SPIRIT OF TRUSTEESHIP. Their confidence and their deep sense of responsibility was revealed in the decision, when the United Nations withdrew their main forces from the Indies, to leave the vast Dutch and indoesian ciyil service at their posts with the task of carying oh as far as possible work of the colonial administration. It was realised that the officials and their families might be subjected to severe hardships by the application of this policy, though it has authority under the established usages of war; but the Netherlands took 'this step in the spirit of trusteeship which has characterised their association with the vast native population. “We have accepted this policy,” Mr Hart has said, “in its full implications, conscious that this is the only policy which is consonant with the basic principles of our progressive system of government.” Implicit also is the faith that the Netherlands Indies will return to the Dutch sovereignty and this through the ultimate victory of the United Nations in which the Dutch are quietly determined to play a part to the fullness of their power and their unremitting courage. This, the answer of the NetherlanderS to the Nazis and to the Japanese, is the more impressive because there is nothing spectacular, no colour of rhetoric to screen the calm solemnity of its purpose and faith.