ABSTRACT
The Netherlanders, the Indonesians, and the Indo-Chinese are essentially peaceful and inoffensive people. Not that they lack courage or, given proper training, military skill; in numerous cases during this war they have proved otherwise. But if again, as in Bacon’s time, “the principal point of greatness in any State is to have a race of military men,” this element of greatness had not been foremost in their thoughts and policies. The necessity of armament on a much larger scale than was required by a scrupulous neutrality, was only gradually appreciated by a nation that had no quarrel and could think of no quarrel with any one; that had never joined the system of economic blocks into which the world was being parcelled out, and therefore had avoided being drawn into disputes about access to raw materials. It is a matter of common knowledge that many others, with less reason perhaps, have long shared this unsuspicious attitude.
