The spirit of give and take
Sir: Happenings in New Guinea look ex- ceedingly disturbing, though, at this distance in space I am the less inclined to accept Crabro's assessment (7 June) in face of his touching naïveté regarding Dutch attitudes and actions in these waters. (I suggest he enlarge his 'expertise' by reading the article on the Dutch role in New Guinea in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica . . then we can go on to Douwes Dekher.) Still it does not follow he is wrong about New Guinea; and it is the more relevant to recall that it is not so long since the SPEC- TATOR was the vehicle through which Soe- karno's government (communist possibly, not Chinese though) made a tentative approach to this country by which a genuinely free vote in New Guinea would have been the quid pro quo for the same thing in North Borneo.
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