Batavia, Aug. 27. WWO fears beset the war-orphaned Netherlands East Indies today as preparations were continued in every field of defence to guard against possible attacks on this rich colonial possession of Holland.
The first fear was that Nazi Germany would hold friends, re-natives and Netherlands officials in the homeland as hostages for delivery of the East Indies to the Reich or to any administration Adolf Hitler may decide should rule tthe Indies.
The second fear was that the United States would impose a complete embargo on exports to Japan, thus virtually forcing Japan to turn southward for vitally-needed materials to supply her war machine, The Netherlanders are more afraid of German pressure because this could not be resisted with armaments and defence measures. There has been no indication of what the East Indies answer would be to German pressure through friends and relatives at home, but it would give officials here an extremely difficult problem to solve.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.