PROBLEM FOR FINLAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 293, 8 November 1934, Page 12

PROBLEM FOR FINLAND.

THE LANGUAGE QUESTION. Finland has two national languages— Finnish, spoken by the great majority of the population, and Swedish, for long the official language and that of the intellectual classes. At the present time the national University of .Helsingfors is bi-lingua.l, though Finnish occupies a preponderating place. Many of the Finns would like to modify this state of affairs and suppress Swedish as teaching medium, whilst the Swedish speaking Finns claim as a minimum the maintenance of the status quo. The Government has submitted to the Diet a plan of settlement which reduces the Swedish part while not altogether suppressing it, and which consequently satisfies neither of the parties. According to this plan Finnish would be the official language or the University, but a few chairs would be reserved for Swedish-speaking professors, some of them fixed, some interchangeable ; that is to sa.y, the teaching of certain subjects would be given sometimes in Finnish, sometimes in Swedish. Accordingly the Swedish speaking students, for many subjects, will have to pass their examinations before a Finnish speaking jury. Would not another solution have been possible, namely the creation ot a Swedish language University alongside that of Helsingfors which would have been purely Finnish? it is asked. The Government had considered this idea all the more so that there already exists in Finland a Swedish language institution of higher education the Academy of Abo. But the heads of t Academy, a private concern would not oo.nsent to its becoming a State University. As for creating a Swedish University the Finnish Government considers that the resources of the country do not admit of itThe ‘question, passionately discussed in Finland, is followed with attention in Sweden, where naturally ono would regret the decline of the Swedish language in the neighbour country. It is pointed out that the knowledge of Swedish is a precious asset, for it puts the young Finn in contact with western civilisation. Then is not Finland a member of the group of Nordic P °lt e is 'not certain that the Government plan will be adopted by the Diet All will depend on the attitude of the Socialist Party, which disposes of a third of the votes and which, in general, is more favourable to Swedish claims than the bourgeois parties ot Finnish language.