DENMARK TO-DAY

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3471, 26 May 1934, Page 9

DENMARK TO-DAY

A LITTLE NATION WITH GREAT IDEALS.

“ PRIMARILY AN AGRICULTURAL COUNTRY.”

(By Hugh Dalton in the London

Daily Herald.)

The Danish Government has held office for close on five years. It has won one general election during that period, and I believe that it will win again.

Thorvald Stauning, once a cigarmaker, now Denmark’s Socialist Prime Minister, is the outstanding political personality in the country. He has immense prestige and popularity, both in his own party and in wide circles outside it. In Denmark, as in the other Scandinavian countries, the Parliamentary position of a Socialist Government is not secure without some measure of support from the representatives of the small farmers.

The large farmers, together with the Conservatives and the tiny handful of Communists, form the natural Opposition. But, whereas in Sweden the whole Government is Socialist, in Denmark there (are eight Socialist Ministers and three from the Radicals, the Party of the small fafm-

One of these three is Dr Munch, the Foreign Minister, a good internationalist with an excellent record at Geneva, who now represents Denmark on the Council of the League.

The public ownership of land is being steadily extended both in town and country. In rural districts local committees advise the Government on the acquisition of suitable private estates, on which small holders are settled as State tenants, their rents varying with the price of agricultural produce! In the towns, and on their outskirts, large areas are owned by the local authorities.

The Copenhagen City Council has had a Socialist majority continuously since 1916, and most of the larger towns are now ruled by Socialist Councils. These local authorities have done much solid work in housing, health, education, and other social services.

But Denmark is primarily an agricultural country, end Britain is her principal market. 'She is hard hit by our restrictions on her bacon exports, and by the still more drastic closing of the German market to her cattle. But, in davs to come, I believe that Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, will readily co-operate with a British Labour Government in planned Socialist policies in trade and finance. One of the Big Four in charge of the Bank of Denmark is C. V. Bramsnacs, formerly Socialist Minister of Finance. Originally a compositor by trade, he is one of the keenest minds in Scandinavia on financial questions. It was he who devised the present popular system of exchange control, which is a wonderfully effective and flexible instrument for compelling foreign trade and investment. All dealers in foreign exchange, whether banks or other agencies, must be licensed. They must make full weekly returns to the Exchange Office of all their transactions, and follow the instructions issued by the Office which, in turn, is under the general supervision of a Parliamentary Committee.

All importers must obtain a permit from the Exchange Office before they can receive their imports or buy foreign exchange, with which to pay for them. The sale of securities for foreign exchange is likewise controlled.

Thus a flight from the Danish crown into foreign currencies is, so long as the control is effective, impossible. Denmark is a' small country, with a much simpler economic and financial structure than ours. But we may profitably study this most interesting experiment. Since the beginning of last, year the Government has prohibited all political uniforms. In the previous year there had been a beginning of this unhealthy fashion, to which the Socialists, as well as Conservatives and Communists, had succumbed.

The result, as in Germany, had been clashes in the streets and a growth of political hysteria. In the winter of 1932, in a street brawl in Copenhagen, a member of the Socialist League of Youth had been murdered by Communists. Thereupon the Government acted promptly and firmly. “ A man may go to bed in a political uniform if he chooses, a Danish magistrate told me, “ but if he wears it in any public place the police have orders to arrest him, and I have to deal with him.”

Stauning has recently taken over, in addition to the Premiership, Ministry of Defence. I spoke to aim about disarmament, and of the view held by some in this country that we should follow Denmark’s lead toward Disarmament by Example. “ They have misunderstood our Party’s position,” he said. ‘ We have never believed in disarmament by example in the sense thjat, if we alone disarmed, others would do the same. Our policy is piacticnl, not speculative. “ We have always believed' in the maintenance of some military force for police purposes; but we have re-

cognised, as practical men, that a small country like Denmark cannot hope to defend herself successfully against an armed attack by a Great Power. That is why we have made certain reductions'. But real disarmament can come only through international agreement.

“ As for you in Britain, unilateral disarmament would only weaken your influence.”

I spent three days in South Jutland, the province which returned to Denmark in 1920 after a plebiscite. Bismarck had annexed it to Prussia after his war with Denmark in 1864. But the great majority of the inhabitants continued, even under the Prussian rule, to vote fior Danish candidates.

The present frontier, based on the plebiscite, seems as fair a line as could be drawn.

Out of a population of 175,000 there is a scattered German minority of 25,000. There is likewise a scattered Danish minority on the German side of the line. Until the Nazis came to power in Germany this was one of the quietest frontiers in Europe. Both minorities were well treated, and their relations with their neighbours were friendly.

The Nazis have changed the atmosphere. Now there is a brooding fear among the Danes in South Jutland of an armed invasion by Storm Troops, winked at, if not officially authorised, by Berlin. _ I was told that there were a thousand Storm Troops among the German minority, and that many of these had arms; and beyond the frontiei there are, of course, much larger numbers within eafjv reach.

I spoke with Pastor Schmidt, who represents the German minority in the Danish Parliament. He said that he, personally, was in favour of a change of frontier, and would prefer that of 1914. This would mean putting 150,000 more Danes under Hitler.

I gathered, however, that the Danish Government has now concentrated sufficient military and police in South Jutland to deal with any unofficial Nazi raid.

This is a wise precaution, for the Nazis have shown, in their treatment of their fellow citizens in Germany, that they have no respect for the weak, the unresisting, and the disarmed.

In South Jutland even I. P. Nielsen, the aged Socialist leader, has received anonymous letters from German Nazis, threatening him with the retribution of the concentration camp on the day of reckoning. Yet Nielsen, during the Great War, was known as “ the Father of the Children,” for he was the leader of an organisation which found homes in neutral Denmark, and refuge from the blockade, for hundreds of German and Austrian children, many of whom, at least until the Nazi revolution, still wrote to him regularly from Berlin, from the Ruhr, and from Vienna.

Hatred, rooted in mad nationalism, is a horrible disease.