IN DENMARK.

Matamata Record, Volume X, Issue 876, 14 November 1927, Page 6

IN DENMARK.

OTHER SIDE OF PICTURE. Denmark is quoted ad nauseam as the place where, agriculturally, they “get things done. 22 It is always being quoted as an example to New Zealand and Great Britain. However, there is apparently another side that we do not hear much about.

The well-known politician, Mr. Philip Snowden, M.P-, writing to the Daily Herald, puts that side rather plainly. “The Danes have fully developed their agriculture, 22 he states, “yet what is the result? One-third of the population is employed in agriculture. Only from 20 to 30 per cent, of the farming produce is consumed in the country, and the rest has to find a foreign market. But to maintain its agricultural output Denmark has to import over 2,000,000 metric tons of cattle feeding stuffs and fertilisers every year. But that is not the only lesson which those who talk about Britain being a self-supporting country in the matter of food might learn from Denmark. Denmark has the largest percentage of unemployed in any country in Europe. The development of its natural resources has not given Denmark a prosperous home market. During 1926 the percentage of Unemployed in Denmark fluctuated between 30 per cent, in January, 14 per cent, in May, and 32.5 per cent, in December —an average percentage three times higher than our own deplorable figures. 22 Apparently, to quote from a school-day friend, “there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. 22