CONDITIONS IN DENMARK.

Matamata Record, Volume XIII, Issue 1108, 24 March 1930, Page 6

CONDITIONS IN DENMARK.

NO FENCES. . All Stock Tethered. * After an absence of 57 years, Mr. V. Jensen, of Wellington, returned recently from a visit to Denmark, his native land. In Denmark he found a great improvement, both in the country districts and the cities, and he noted prosperity everywhere. The country was one vast dairy farm, with poultry farming and pig raising as well. There were no fences, the farms, many pf which were very small judged by New Zealand standards, being separated only by a narrow strip of uncultivated turf, perhaps four inches high, which in. most instances has been, undisturbed for hundreds of years. Fences would prevent the ploughing of these small areas to their boundaries, and there is no waste ground in Denmark. Naturally under such conditions the animals do not roam around, and every one of them, sheep, cows, horses, etc., are tethered all the summer. In the winter they are housed, because of the severe conditions, and the cows are then fed on oil cake, or soya kager, as it is called in Danish. Hundreds of tons of this food come to Denmark from all parts of the world. “ It is unpleasant looking stuff,” said Mr. Jensen, “like dirty lumps of gravel.” There were, he said, 114,000 small farms in Denmark. Heavy Food Consumption. Good wages were being paid in Denmark, and unemployment was not so serious as here. The unemployed ranged in number from 30,000 in the

winter to 25,000 in the summer. It was a busy community, but the average number of hours worked, except on the farms, was eight as here. Oh the farms people worked from ten to eleven hours a day. One of the things that struck him most was the enormous amount of feeding done by everybody. He found he could not keep pace with the natives, and was twitted a good deal about it. People in New Zealand did very well, said Mr. Jensen, but in Denmark they would be left far behind in the day’s food consumption. Heavy meals were the rule, and there was plenty of food in all classes of the community. Perhaps it w r as the colder climate that seemed to edge everyone’s appetite,- but he thought it might also be that during the war the people of Denmark were starved, and had not yet got out of the habit of eating to catch up. Even in England he found that people ate more than they did here, but nothing like the amount of food was consumed daily as in Denmark, which had the reputation of being the pantry of Europe. Farmers were industrious and economical, the mainstay of the country, but in the cities there were plenty of well-to-do people, who thoroughly enjoyed life. Everywhere life was gay, but a Government tax of 10 per cent on all food, and a waiters’ tax of 10 per cent, making a total of 20 per cent, made all meals expensive, and taxing what seemed like one of the chief national amusements must have returned the Government a round sum.