SCANDINAVIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 50, 27 August 1938, Page 11

SCANDINAVIA

"SANE & DEMOCRATIC"

SHANGE FROM CENTRAL

EUROPE

NATIONAL PROBLEMS

(By Dora Birtles.) At a conference of writers in London I heard Mr. Philip Guedella, the distinguished historian and biograpner, . say that there was no need for the lovers of democratic freedom to adopt a defeatist attitude in the face of the European dictatorships. He claimed that the drift of history was irresistibly towards freedom and democracy and proved his point by a comparison of .the Europe and America of today with that of a hundred years ago when America was recovering from the Civil War and Europe was under the domination of Metternich. Even the coming to power of Hitler and Mussolini and the absorption of Austria, a post-war Austria much smaller than the Habsburg Austria of 1838, made no difference to Mr. Guedella's summing up. The balance of the world remained, even now, definitely democratic and peace-loving. To Middle Europe, controlled or threatened by dictatorships, the Scandinavian countries acted as a strong democratic • counterpoise. : I admit freely that after Middle Europe it was a relief to me to be in the Scandinavian countries, in a sane, democratic atmosphere. A prosperous atmosphere too. All kinds of people j to whom I spoke were more or less satisfied with their work and conditions of living. The women . dress j • smartly, houses and living conditions are attractive, or appear so, co-opera-tive societies flourish, and food is abundant and good. This last paint is important. In Germany housewives gave me long.lists : of prices of foodstuffs, and they were, in relation to the incomes earned, high. But their chief grumble was that the quality of the food was poor and the nourishment it gave not sufficient for ; the money paid. Then they had difficulties in getting what they wanted • when they wanted it They could not depend on getting steak or even eggs, they had to take whatever was going. [In Poland, primarily an agricultural country, food was very good and ' abundant, but the people did not have the. money to purchase it. There was a great deal of very obvious physical destitution. Finland, perhaps the least well-off of the Scandinavian countries, had a rural economy that appealed to me a great deal., The houses are neat and clean, the land well-drained", and the cattle well-bred; A great lumber industry has been built up, and Hel- , "srnkii, the capital, is rapidly developing into a beautiful and modern city". AFFAIRS IN FINLAND. Until I went to Finland I imagined it was a veiled dictatorship completely under' Nazi influence. This was a misconception on my part. Finland has its own army and defence preparations, ' its Parliament functions legally and without interruption from without. Finns assured me that in the1 recent dispute over the Polish Finn border the Finns yielded to Polish pressure pnly in order to preserve the European peace. They claimed that it was their moral victory arid showed the extreme power of the Finnish national selfdiscipline. Maybe it was. I spoke to a Finn who had farmed in Australia and whorhadr taken back his, Australian wife to: the ancestral acres in Finland. They had been back a couple of years, but intended to return to Australia soon. ■He had found a shortage of labour on the land. The farm was too much for him on his own, but the young men of the district went off to the university or to trade schools in the, capital "and it was impossible to get the necessary help. He had also had difficulties because of the social differences between the Swedish Finns and the Finnish Finns. There is a large Swedish minority in Finland, and all street notices, direction boards, etc., are printed in the two languages. The Swedish Finns have their own representatives in the National Assembly. "Have you then the same kind of problem here with the Swedes as the Czechs have with the Sudeten Deutsch?" I asked. "No," was the reply. "There may be serious disagreement, even dissension, but there can be no sort of external political provocation as in Czechoslovakia. Our neighbour Sweden is no dictatorship, but a democratic country pledged to neutrality." A CELEBRATION. :;I witnessed an interesting demonstration of Swedish-Finn solidarity While I was in Finland the celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of the Bolsheviks were being staged Visiting Finland was a strong Swedish delegation from the Swedish Brigade an Old Soldiers organisation. The original battalion had helped the Finns defeat the Russians, and they were all singing songs about it. There were the usual marks of national rejoicing. Parades of the army and of the school children the laying of wreaths on" the tombs of national heroes, the plavingof complimentary national anthems. Alter the big demonstration I had seen in France Germany, and Poland this Finnish celebration had a toyshop qualrty about it Perhaps I waf to? close to the participants. In the corridors of the hotel at Brando I had kept -falling over the swords and dress uniform cases pf the visiting celebrities and I had been present at an elaborate ceremony with Swedish ladies in picture hats, large presentation bouquets and' Ascot dresses. There was a high wind blowing and nobody could escape looking ridiculous. Even my democratic enthusiasm did not make me deaf to the ragged nature of the singing. THE DETACHED ATTACHE. On the way to Stockholm from Abo I found myself sharing a cabin with a . Swedish notability and her twin babies. The boat was crowded and full of returning diplomats and there was no other berth. One of the twins reposed on my bed and I could do nothing about it. When the Notability, the Twins, and I.set up howls of protest about everything—all of us in different languages—the purser said he would do what he could and at midnight I found myself installed for'ard in the chief stewardess's cabin. An American attache who had come from Czechoslovakia via Finland was not so fortunate, his clothes were thrown out of his cabin by an irate fellow-traveller whom he declared ought not to have been there at all-^and he spent the rest of the voyage in the.steward's quarters. "Well I guess I'm up against real daimocracy this time," he drawled^ Just how democratic Sweden was I found out by accident, when I stood knocking on the front door of what I thought was a museum. "It ought to be open by this time," I thought with annoyance. There was a heavy shower of rain a.t the time and I wanted to get in out of the wet. Before me lay the beautiful old harbour of Stockholm with fishermen mending their curious circular nets. On either side of the doorway where I stood were blue and white striped sentry boxes. "Do themselves rather well in Sweden," I thought vaguely. A functionary in a dignified uniform came out and bowed. Guess the rest. The King was in residence and I had been knocking on the front door of the palace.

The uniformity of popular feeling in northern countries can be judged from the fact that at present they all have social democratic governments in which compromises have been reached between the agricultural and industrial interests. It is as if in all the States of Australia coalition Governments of Labour and Country Party were in power. NEUTRALITY A GRAVE PROBLEM. The annexation of Austria by Germany has caused a lot of anxiety in Scandinavia. In North Sleswig there is a Fascist movement and many Swedes are worried by the possible threat to Sweden of a fresh German push to the north. All the Swedish newspapers, from the "Svenska Dagbladet" on the Right to the Social Democratic "Ny Tid" on the Left, were discussing the Swedish conception of neutrality. It is widely maintained j that in the event of war Sweden could not maintain the old-style neutrality of the last war. Her raw materials are indispensable to Germany. The Labour paper, "Arbetet," recommended a neutrality that would not give supplies to any belligerent parties of the future. On the other hand the Minister of Trade, Skold, said that Sweden could not maintain a "dogmatic neutrality." He advocated continued support of the League of Nations. Norwegians are up against the same problem. A Norwegian shipowner, a pro-German, was very bitter about the "neutrality" of Norway in the last war when, he claimed, one-third of the Norwegian mercantile marine was lost in the unofficial service of Great Britain. He had been torpedoed twice, once by Britain in the North Sea, and once by Germany in the Baltic. He had nearly died in the North Sea, and so he owed Britain the greatest grudge. Norway's revenue from the "invisible export" of ocean carrying is-very high and my friend's interest in the situation was typical. Norwegian commercial firms, sailors, and shipowners are watching with close attention every move in the Mediterranean piracy game. The decisions of Great Britain in this respect are vitally important to them. , . Although the Socialist Prime Minister of Denmark, Stauning, rejected a newspaper proposal for a Northern Defence Alliance, maintaining that _his country was under no threat from Germany, yet it is obvious that some concerted agreement will be reached by the Scandinavian countries about their neutrality of the future. Already some steps have been taken. In case of war mutual economic aid may be given though the exact nature of this is not yet known. Also at a conference at * Oslo in April the Foreign Ministers of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland reached an agreement that the Northern Countries, today as ever should remain outside the groupings of Powers which might be formed m Europe and in the event of war among these they must and will do their utmost not to be drawn into such a war. So the Scandinavian Symphony plays its quiet tune for peace.