We note that the future status of Netherlands New Guinea is listed
for discussion at the forthcoming Round Table Conference at The
Hague.

2. We feel that Netherlands New Guinea occupies a special position
geographically, ethnologically and politically. It is the only
foreign territory whose land frontier confronts our own and it
occupies a strategic position in relation to Torres Strait and the
Northern Australian coastline generally. Moreover, the welfare of
the inhabitants of Netherlands New Guinea appears to call for
their integration in the long run with the peoples of Papua-New
Guinea and the rest of Melanesia rather than for their absorption
into an Indonesian or Asian world. Moreover, the establishment of
Indonesian control could lead to a large scale influx of Asiatic
peoples whose influence on Australian New Guinea to say nothing of
the Melanesian inhabitants of Netherlands New Guinea, might be
disastrous. Further, Netherlands activities in the area are
showing a desire to utilise opportunities for co-operation with
Australian Administration in New Guinea and with other Governments
in the South Pacific through the machinery of the South Pacific
Commission.

3. In these circumstances, we should prefer the substantive issues
in dispute between the Indonesians and the Dutch to be settled
independently of, or at least prior to, any discussion on the
future control of Netherlands New Guinea, the status of which
should be treated from the outset as presenting problems not
essentially connected with the transfer of sovereignty to the
Republic. If this line is followed, the question of Netherlands
New Guinea may be settled without our being called upon to express
any policy publicly in this connection.

4. If the Indonesians are not at present willing to concede the
sovereignty of Western New Guinea to the Netherlands for an
indefinite period, an effort might be made to persuade them that
the Netherlands should retain sovereignty of Western New Guinea
until 1960, when the question of its status could be reopened. It
is most unlikely that the primitive inhabitants of Netherlands New
Guinea will be capable of self-government for a long time,
certainly not by 1960.

5. As a means of retaining Western New Guinea under European
hegemony but
with a government responsible to world opinion, the Netherlands
may be prepared to administer Western New Guinea under
trusteeship. We would view such a development with favour for with
the Netherlands Government having full powers of administration
but accountable to the Trusteeship Council the territory would
have some assurance of economic development and social and
political advancement to the stage when the inhabitants would
become capable of self-government and independence if they so
chose.

6. It is not felt that the United States of Indonesia will within
the very near future have either the resources, personnel or
experience for the administration of Western New Guinea as part of
the U.S.I. or as a trust territory. The administrative
backwardness of the U.S.I. would also appear to preclude Indonesia
from participating in a condominium in Western New Guinea in
association with the Dutch. In any event, the condominium form of
control government has little to recommend it.

7. Please keep us fully informed as to all likely developments in
relation to Western New Guinea.