For the time being at least, the German threat to Holland has bern stayed and there has been a relaxation of military precaution: in the latter country. Whether Herr Hitler's military plans envisage the invasion of Holland or Belgium in order to obtain advanced base= against Britain, or whether recent movements have been part of a bully's plan to overawe small nations, is not known. Hitherto, the Hitlerian legions have been flung into action only against small and almost impotent nations but against powers of equally measured strength a definite caution has been maintained. The German threat to Holland, however, is not minimized, not only from the point of view of that tiny but stout-hearted country but also in regard io the Netherlands East Indies, Which occupy a position in the Far East almost analogous to Singapore and Malaya, although disproportionate in population and political respects. Any imposition of Nazi military will on Holland means the isolation or independence of Holland's colonial empire overseas but doe: not necessarily mean any weakening of her position. A military correspondent writing in the "Sydney Morning Herald" recently expressed Australia's concern regarding any adverse situation in Holland although he expressed no anxiety in view of tremendous large increases in the Netherlands East Indies defence appropriations in recent years. Holland's defences in the Far East are by no means negligible and the extent of her ce-operation with the British Empire at Singapore is something undisclosed but obviously important. This correspondent writes If Germany invades Holland and any other power tries to extend the war to the Dutch Indies, it seems incontestable that Holland's allies in Europe would have to support her in the East +..It would not be Java at stake, but the whole balance of power in the Far East and the Pacific Ocean, a factor that would probably tend to make for a greater immobility than one would otherwise expect if Holland were invaded.
The Dutch are more favourably situated for defence in the Javanese group than in Holland itself, and they have built up over recent years a defensive organization admirably modernized and adapted in all particulars to the needs of the local problem.
This, in a nutshell, from a country vitally interested in any violent change in world strategical dispositions, reveals a new aspect of the extension of the European battlefield, but describes such extensions in terms of & new confidence based on a knowledge of actual conditions which may have held back Germany's hand against Holland.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.