Indonesian Settlement
The Hague conference on Indonesia, which has just completed its labours, was the first attempt since 1945 to achieve a comprehensive settlement of all outstanding problems in Holland's former huge, sprawling East Indian Empire. The fact that the conference was convened and conducted in an atmosphere of cordiality and tolerance, and that its long sessions have produced eventual agreement, are good auguries for peace. So is the United Nations part in the matter. The general political outline of the new Indonesia is dear enough; the United States of Indonesia is to be created, taking in all the former Dutch colonial possessions. The new Republic is to be a "democratic constitutional State of federal structure," whose exact constitution will eventually be decided by a Constituent Assembly. In the meantime a People's Representative Assembly will come into
being in which the more extreme Republican Party will have fifty seats against the Federalists' hundred—a proportion which is greater than their numerical strength but less than their aspirations. The difficult problem of New Guinea is to be held over for a year for further discussion. This, of course, immediately suggests itself as one possible source of difference, and the rate of withdrawal of Dutch troops is another. In the past it has been the interpretation of intentions which has caused most of the trouble between Dutch and Indonesians. On this occasion, when intentions on both sides are excellent, it can only be hoped that interpretations will be made in Indonesia itself in the same spirit of forbearance that has ruled at The Hague.
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