This was followed on 2nd November 1949 by the to the so called The Hague Conference. The task of the Conference was to negotiate the transfer of sovereignty to an Indonesian Federal State. The Conference almost floundered on two issues: the status of West New Guinea and the question of the debts to be assumed by the new Indonesian State. Tom Critchley helped to broker an agreement on both questions: first by urging the parties to leave the issue of West New Guinea to post-independence political negotiations and secondly by urging the lessening of the debts to be taken over by Indonesia.
The final agreement saw the transfer of sovereignty to the United States of Indonesia – this time all under the control of the Republik but in a union with the Netherlands and its other overseas territories: Surinam and its territories in the Caribbean.