The dust of last week's 'crisis' [1] has now settled and we have
this week been going about our work in a more orderly way. I have
just come from a meeting of the main Delegations, at which we
established sub-committees to deal with political prisoners and
Republican supply. The sub-committee to work out paragraph VII [2]
of Dr. van Royen's statement of 7th May, and the Central Joint
Board having already been established, we are now in a position to
get ahead with the work left over to us by the main Delegations
before their departure to The Hague.

The meeting of the Central Joint Board at Djocjakarta last
Saturday (my cable K.339 [3]) was not at all satisfactory. In the
first place, by an arrangement made by the Republicans, U.N.C.I.

was left out of the main discussions leading to the agreement on
the directive to the local Joint Committees for the delineation of
zones. In complaining of this, I do not mean that the parties
should never get together by themselves and reach agreements-the
more of that the better. However, in this particular case we had
special responsibilities, both as full members of the Board and as
the party whose military observers are chairing the local Joint
Committees and so have to carry the burden of steering the
Committees through the contentious work of the delineation of
zones. We felt then, that we should have an opportunity of putting
our position to the parties. As it was, on arrival in Djocjakarta
the Republicans said they wished first to confer among themselves,
then to talk with the Dutch, and then to hold an informal session
of the Board. Dow, the week's Chairman, pointed out that this
allowed no time for discussion with the Deputies and Wongsonegoro,
the chief Republican representative, said he would allow for this.

However, he did not, and we were presented with a directive which
we had hardly more than ten minutes to examine, let alone
criticise, particularly in the face of Dutch insistence that since
both parties were agreed, their agreement should be formalised on
the spot to allow the Board to move on to other urgent business-
namely, the item on the Observance of the Cease-Hostilities
Agreement.

The second reason for our dissatisfaction was the directive
itself, which we found far too vague and unlikely to be of any
assistance to the local Joint Committees. In addition, I knew that
the directive did not meet Republican ideas, even though they had
agreed to it, and I suspected that they had been completely
outmanoeuvred during the discussions. I have since found out that
the Republicans went into the meeting with some completely new and
ill-considered proposal for scrapping the delineation of zones
altogether. The Dutch scattered their ranks by pointing out that
this contravened the Cease-Hostilities Agreement, and then pushed
through with their own proposals, the main point of which was that
zones of patrol should be as contiguous as possible and should be
no smaller than a sub-district. Rather than preparing the way for
an orderly re-grouping of the Dutch forces, preparatory to their
withdrawal into the main towns, this proposal afforded opportunity
to consolidate the Dutch position in the field. To complete
Republican confusion, the F.C.A. representative [4] pressed for a
system of combined patrolling, which as you know has long been
anathema to Djocjakarta. The discussions reached a deadlock and
the Dutch said they should have to refer to U.N.C.I.; as a final
bid they dropped the sub-districts and Wongsonegoro agreed,
explaining to Ali Budiardjo later that reference to U.N.C.I. would
have involved endless talk!
I have gone into this in some detail to illustrate to you the
confusion in which the Republicans have been over the last few
weeks-for as you know, the point on which they have always stood
firm, and with good reason, is that U.N.C.I. must participate.

Since last Saturday, I have talked the situation over with Natsir
and Budiardjo and Republican representation has now been re-
organised to ensure that at least one of their senior people in
the Central Joint Board will remain in Batavia for contact with
U.N.C.I.

The Board met again on Tuesday night and after three hours'
informal session agreed to refer the Dutch complaints of
Republican infringements, as detailed in their various letters, to
the Local Committees, for investigation and report. It is a pity
that the Dutch insisted on this point, since the Committees
already have their hands full, without being called on by the
Board to investigate specific complaints, most of which, as I
explained last week, in any case refer to incidents which were
settled some time ago. However, De Beus was acting under
Government instructions and the Board could not get on with its
other work until he was satisfied.

Our impression is that the Dutch now realize that they greatly
exaggerated the military dangers last week, and now seek some
justification by having the Board deal with their complaints. The
Republicans fear also that the Dutch are attempting to construct a
case illustrating lack of Republican authority over the T.N.I.

There might be something to this insofar as the T.N.I. Commander
in East Java is concerned (the Republicans describe him as
'difficult'), but in general Republican authority is to be
measured in terms of Republican communications, and these could
not be worse. However, the various couriers were to have completed
their marches by to-day and with the Sultan touring East and
Central Java next week, the Republicans are confident of a speedy
improvement in T.N.I. implementation of the Cease-Hostilities. I
might say that the Dutch have not put themselves out to supply
communication equipment. The position in that respect will become
clearer after the sub-committee on supply has met.

In general, the atmosphere has eased considerably since last week
and the Dutch, though still to my mind oversensitive about
infringements, have largely recovered from their hysteria. At the
same time they still show too little readiness to approach the
situation here 'on its merits' and allow themselves to be blown
about by winds from The Hague. So far they have been dominant and
the work here has suffered accordingly; I feel that it will depend
on what the Republicans can offer in the way of constructive
policies, coherence and a determined approach, whether the work of
the next few months be productive or not.

It is still too early to report on the implementation of the
Cease-Hostilities, but general impressions are that it is
progressing satisfactorily. Reports are now beginning to come in
and I should be able to give you a survey next week.