The Queen Looks at the Future

Important Statements of H.M. Queen Wilhelmina on War and Peace Aims

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Problems of War and Peace
H.M. Queen Wilhelmina's address to the Herald Tribune Forum as read by Dr. Hubertus J. van Mook, Minister for the Netherlands Indies, Surinam and Curaçao, on November 17th, 1942.⁺

Unable as I am, to my regret, to be present at this Forum, I am the more glad to have this opportunity of saying to you, through the medium of our Minister of Overseas Territories, certain things which I have in mind.

I believe that there is general agreement on the need of the United Nations being ready for the moment when hostilities cease. It is quite true, of course, that first the war has to be won and that the best brains and stoutest hearts devote themselves to that primary task. Without final victory planning for peace is useless, worse than useless, because it is apt to create the fatal illusion that winning the war will take care of itself-which it obviously will not.

But without forgetting that for a single moment, we also have to remember that if we do not thrust our mind and our will in time on the problems of peace, those problems will suddenly thrust themselves on us. Chaos would be the result and the beaten enemy would not be slow in taking advantage of it. I believe that this is more and more being realized and that governments and peoples generally are acting accordingly.

It would not be enough if only the governments took these important matters in hand. A well-informed public opinion is indispensable. The free press has a most important duty in this respect. We see here the merit and advantage that the truly democratic countries have over our enemies. We have the benefit of the inter-stimulation between the authorities and people, resulting in real, voluntary support for government action. They have to be content with decisions molded by a few. Consequently there is every chance, as soon as things go wrong, that the people will disassociate themselves from their supposedly omniscient leaders.

It seems to me worth while summarizing briefly what consensus there exists between and among the United Nations on matters of peace and what are the chief problems that will have to be dealt with.

The Axis countries want to destroy human liberty for individual persons as well as for individual nations. Their aim is retrograde in the sense that they want to bring back the old, old form of domination which our ancestors successfully toiled to eliminate-tyranny.

We, on the other hand, want to uphold human liberty and establish a happy balance between the rights and duties of the individual and those of the community. Within each state we want to safeguard the citizen from undue interference by the authorities and, conversely, we want to enable the authorities to

+ (Reprinted by courtesy of Herald Tribune.)

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fulfill their task, too, caused by the excessive assertion of individual rights. And in the family of nations we want to pursue the same ideal.

Our aim, in a word, is the golden mean between private rights and the needs of the community. That is the very opposite of the retrograde-it is a perpetual process of adjustment as new conditions arise, a forward, progressive movement.

Nowhere had this deep conviction of us all been more strikingly applied than in the Netherlands Indies since the beginning of the century. In that island community old government forms had become obsolete. A happy parallelism existed between the aspirations of the native intelligentsia and my compatriots from Holland. Both wanted progressive emancipation of the gifted races living there. It is for that reason that, despite the inertia of tradition, which is so strong in the masses of the east, and despite also the very great ethnographic, linguistic and many other diversities and difficulties, a bi-political unit is being gradually formed there on a basis of cooperation between the Asiatic element and the European element from Holland, under the voluntarily-accepted aegis of the Netherlands Kingdom, of which the Indies are not colonies but a component part-just as the Netherlands in Europe. This process is, as you know, being continued. No opportunity for advancing it is allowed to slip by.

Specific aims were set for the United Nations when your President formulated the Four Freedoms which we seek to attain-Freedom of speech, Freedom of expression, Freedom of worship and Freedom from fear and want. We could all the more readily associate ourselves wtih these aims since, as I said in my address to Congress last summer, the Netherlands people had long approached-and to a large extent attained-the realization of these Four Freedoms. Nothing illustrates better the retrograde trend of the Axis policies than the fact that the German and Japanese occupation of Netherlands territory meant the end, for the time being, of each and all of the Four Freedoms on our soil.

Further amplification was given to our stated common purpose by the adoption of the Atlantic Charter by all the United Nations. I do not need to recall to your minds the tenets of that charter, which has its place in perpetuity, in the history of personal and national rights and duties. It will be its application which will matter as much as its enunciation and acceptance. Not all of its clauses are equally clear. When it is interpreted in terms of practical measures it will be important to remember that it is an instrument for good. With that touchstone we should never go far wrong.

So far for our fundamental convictions and aims.

I should like to add a few words on our chief peace problems. It seems to me that they are twofold. On the one hand measures will have to be taken in each country to bring it back on a peace footing. The demobilization of the Armed Forces will raise many difficulties, especially in the social sphere. The same holds good in the economic field when it comes to readapting industry for peace needs and reviving commerce. In the occupied countries, where so much has been ravaged, pillaged, stolen and destroyed, the difficulties will be very great. International help will be indispensable to rescue those sorely-tried peoples. But many more of these problems will have to be dealt with nationally, and I can say no more about them for that reason.

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On the other hand there are many problems which can only be dealt with on international lines. How are we to rebuild the world? How are we to assure international security? How are we to direct international trade? Much thought is being given to these problems in the press and by private agencies, as well as by governments.

You will, on this occasion, not expect many concrete suggestions. There are still too many unknown elements which only time will reveal as being pertinent and relevant. But I should like to point out what to me seems to be a danger. I hear much about machinery which will have to be set up to ensure international security, to regulate exchanges, to direct the flow of goods and to raise the living standard throughout the world, especially in the countries hitherto less favored in that respect. But it seems to me that another problem, so far left very much in the dark, is at least as important and probably even more important. The problem is-what is going to be done with the beaten enemies? What with Germany? What with Japan? What with Italy and the lesser states aiding the Axis? If wise measures are not taken in this respect, the best edifice for international security and trade will be of little or no avail.

The thirst for revenge will be great and understandable. Let us not, however, allow revenge to be our guiding motive. Revenge is barren, except in that it breeds revenge. Let justice be our aim, justice and firmness tempered by wisdom.

Impracticable or exorbitant measures are just as bad as no measures at all. That has not always been remembered. Let us not lose sight of it again. We must be just, firm, realistic and far-sighted. The future of those who come after us is at stake, and for that future we are to a large extent responsible.

The Netherlands Kingdom is situated in Europe, Asia and along the shore of the Caribbean. Our interests are bound up with the interests of other peaceful nations in those vast areas. Our rights there have their necessary corollaries in duties-duties to contribute as much as we can to the security of those regions and let them participate in the economic life of the world at large, to which their natural resources can make an indispensable contribution. You will, therefore, always find the Netherlands on the side of those who are willing to make a genuine contribution towards international safety from aggression, towards the freest possible flow of commerce, as a free and independent state imbued with a sincere spirit of cooperation. We hope that we may count upon the same spirit in the other nations.

Twice in a lifetime we have seen that international peace and prosperity are indivisible. Twice the lack of preparedness has made the waters rise to our very lips. Unless we are prepared to face realities the same waters might well engulf us if they are allowed to rise a third time. For you and for us, as well as for everybody, international cooperation is the only salvation-not only in this war but after it. Every person who shares this conviction must, I think, see to it that it prevails. Let us all, Americans and Dutch, work and strive to that end.