country; located in north temperate zone and in New World; endowed with vast and varied resources; peopled mostly from Europe, especially northern Europe; its political and social concepts and practices predominantly of Anglo-Saxon origin; its people knowing a good deal about Europe but all too little about Asia, especially eastern Asia, and by and large not greatly interested, except in periods of crisis, in politics of any foreign country or area; large, rich, powerful, idealistic, self-confident. As a political entity we were born of revolt. We are inclined to envision other peoples in our own image-to a degree-and to assume that other peoples can and should do as, we think, we have done, or as, we think, we are doing. We have a tendency to believe that people who want freedom should have freedom and that any who are conservative about according freedom are oppressors. The Netherlands East Indies is a part, a very important part, of Kingdom of Netherlands. That Kingdom is made up of metropolitan area, Holland, in Europe; West Indies in America; and East Indies in Asia. It is a political entity created by forceful effort of a sturdy, imaginative, intelligent, resourceful, courageous, determined, religiously inclined and comparatively liberal people. The Dutch know something, even as do people of United States, about fighting for freedom and attaining independence. They believe, as do we, that in union there is strength. Having achieved union and attained independence, Netherlands in Europe was for two centuries a republicand during that period its people sailed seven seas and established their It emerged from Napoleonic period a constitutional monarchy, with governmental authority throughout empire vested in Crown. It developed a parliamentary system. In 1901 its Government proclaimed new and liberal principles for governing of colonies, and its course has since then been guided by those principles. The various parts of Kingdom of Netherlands are strategically located. The Dutch are a people closely akin in culture and in outlook to people of United States and people of British Commonwealth of Nations. They played a valiant and valuable part as our allies in World War II. They are friendly to United States and hostile to our enemies. With or without their overseas territories, they are of outstanding importance among small or middle powers. The Netherlands East Indies is a region rather than as yet a self-integrating and cohesive political entity. With its several thousand islands, just off Asiatic Continent and north of Australia, strung for more than 3,000 miles along equator, with a total area of more than 700,000 square miles and a population of approximately 70,000,000 people, it has been called the world's richest island empire.