€(je Wanganui C(jronule TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1950 SWEDEN LOSES HER KING

Wanganui Chronicle, 31 October 1950, Page 4

€(je Wanganui C(jronule TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1950 SWEDEN LOSES HER KING

IT is characteristic of the life of King Gustav of Sweden that he should have died in his chair while attending a Cabinet meeting. This man was a democrat king which became a son of Bernadotte, one of Napoleon’s marshals, who was offered and accepted the throne of Sweden in 1810. It is singular that with the death of King Gustav that his family name should be in the news i'n anothiy respect, for Bernadotte was Prince of Ponte Corva, the name of the scientist who has recently disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Enjoying a hundred years of peace, Sweden has been able to equip herself for the ways of peace and has eenjoyed the benefits of butter because she has been free from providing herself with guns that are necessary when a war breaks out. This policy of neutrality which the country has adhered to since the House of Bernadotte has ruled in Sweden, while providing Swedes with much profit, lias been much misunderstood in the rest of the world. It seemed to rest upon a chilly indifference to the fate of the rest of the world. Sweden, however, is as vulnerable, or nearly so, as Italy and if the present policy of neutrality is to be rightly understood it must be read against the history of the country during the previous eighteenth century. Her adventurings on the European continent proved disastrous to her national life, notwithstanding the valour and skill of the Swedes themselves in the field of battle.

Russia was Sweden’s main support in that dark century, but with the opening of the nineteenth century Sweden’s policy changed. She turned westward in her way of life and she became more dependent upon Western Powers. In the hope of reducing the prospects of war in the Scandinavian peninsula the Swedes sought the union with Norway, but the latter country, not desiring it, a short war was fought in 1814 when, as a result of the peace treaty then signed, Norway became united with Sweden. In 1905, however, the Norwegians still desired to govern themselves as a separate country and this was acceded to by arrangement which met with world-wide approval. King Oscar died in 1907 and Gustav mounted the throne of a people who had prospered materially, that had developed culturally, and that was aware of its own good standing in the world. Gustav appreciated the situation thoroughly and throughout his long reign he identified himself with the people while not ceasing to be a king. He was the ideal citizen king in being. In a country where physical culture and personal fitness is a cult touching every citizen, King- Gustav could commend himself to the masses by playing tennis in open competition at an advanced age. He seemed, like the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria to defy time itself. But whereas the Hapsburger was weighed down with care and grief, Gustav was the normal man living a normal life, enjoying a day-to-day existence as it should be enjoyed and finding his country, his people and the world good.