A report of a nine-man Dutch parliamentary commission that visited New Guinea last year concluded that the Dutch administration was ineffective and without success.

As many a World War II G.I. can testify, Western New Guinea is an unappetizing piece of real estate—a land of tropical swamps, unexplored mountains and predominantly Stone Age inhabitants. Yet for more than seven years, possession of this forbidding backwater has been the subject of a bitter quarrel…