THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
FRIDAY, DECEMBER
NORWAY'S PLACE IN THE WORLD INTER-SCANDINAVIAN DEVELOPMENTS
N
By CHRISTIAN L. LANGE;
ench of them is jealously looking after its special interests, Norway TORWAY is one of the smallcat perhaps more than the two others, of European nations, with because it is the smallest of tho less than 3,000,000 inhabitants. three, and because its past history The smallness of its population is has taught a painful lesson of the accentuated, rather than counter-disadvantages and even the perils balanced, by the disproportionats of any fusion whatsoever. largenena of its territory, some DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER 130,000 square smiles, an area as While Sweden is essentially a large as that of the British Isles Baltic nation, looking cast (the whole of Ireland Included), south; while Denmark for een- and or that of Italy. Of this ener- turies has aren its fato closely moun area only 8 per cent. is bound up with Germany to the arable soil, 20 per cent. Is covered mouth, and only for the last fifty by foresta or grazing grounds, or sixty years has turned more three-fourths is entirely unpre-and more to the west, becoming ductive, consisting of mountains, "the larder of London," Norway, glaciers, lakes, or marshes. The as commanded by its geographical country is situated in the far situation and configuration, has north-western corner of Europe, always been looking westward. as far north as Greenland, whose The Viking expeditions went weat southern point is on the same to Britain and Ireland; when the latitude as Oslo, the Norwegian Norwegian sailors slowly built up capital. If the Gulf Stream did trade and navigation on a nation with aristocratic principles, and not flow along the coasts of Nor-in basis after the Hanseatic power Denmark
Its geographical situation way, keeping its harbours open had crumbled
autocracy the fringe of the European con- to sit as members of the delega- on allowing any of its representatives In the sixteenth until 1849. even in winter, Norway would century, it was to England and
And during the nineteenth cen-its neighbour except across the
tinent, without any big power as tion. have been ne inhospitable a Holland they carried Norwegiantury this democratic tradition was sea, givea Norway an exceptional already been sald,
In the League counells, a has Greenland or as northern Siberia, timber, to France and Spain they in special way strongthened by degree of security, and, barring battled
Norway has Can, such a country, amul in
the fight for
for tho full national in the disarmed nations of central development of the League. Pro- population.
progressive far from rich
dependence waged with Sweden. Europe, it is therefore probably fesser Hagerup in natural resources and whose larze
In most countries nationalism is the least armed nation in Europe.sembly wrote the report on the the first AB- aren is a handicap rather than an
a conservative force, looking back-The strongest politlent party in World Court; Fridtjof Nansen assel, pretend to any "place in the
ward to the past. In Norway na-Parliament, Labour, world"? The allotment of a "place in the world," as we all too
tionalism became for more than ing. 69 members out of 150, is advocate of the development of now count. was for many years the consistent well know, is determined in terma
one generation a progressive, for conalatent advocate of, unilateral the mandate system and of many ward-looking movament, because disarmament. of power-military, economic,
The Norwegian humanitarian initiatives; the pre- Anancial—and in
full national independence was representatives in the League As- sent none of these
something still to be won. Na-sembly and in
Premier. Joh. Ludwig tionalism allied itself with politi- Conference have been among the hilthg energy the case for free the Disarmament Mowinckel, has defended with un- col radicalism, and helped to vie-hief advocates for a system of rade and was the chief author of tory Important democratic re- forms: parliamentarism, manhood, and
A farewell party for Admirat Imamura, ex-Commander of the Japanese Third Flest, was givan in the garden of the residence of the managar of the M.B.K. Admiral Imamura has been appointed to the command of the Sasebo Naval Base. Photo shows some of the leading naval and military officials who attended the function, among whom were Mayor Wa Tok chen and Colonel John Beaumont of the U.S. Marines.
spheres Norway, by the very nature of its. situation, can pre- tend to have any say at all.
If sometimes Norway's voice is listened to in international coun- elis, and even listened to with some respect; it must be bernase the Norwegian nation has develop- ed a personality of its own. It must be because it the moral and cultural fields, It has attained ap distinction which gives it a special place, even in the world,
Which are the factors that havaj been at play in these fields and have determined the evolution of Norway as a nation?
DEVELOPMENT.
From the dawn of history Nor- way han found itself a member of a community of three nations: Denmark, Norway und Sweden. From the Viking Age onward, for a thousand years. inter-Scandina- vian history is a tale of interne cine fends, each of the three nations Bghting for the hegemony of the North, with varying suc- ross, now one, now the other being the predominant power, exercising the sway over one or both of the others. The greaterials of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars brought matters to a head, and the settlement of 1814-15 created at long last as equilibrium which has proved lasting: three independent nations-ench-with-its own characteristic national life.; It is a unique fact in the history of Europe that for more than 100 years these three neighbour tione have now maintained peace among themselves; Norway and Sweden have even preserved peace with all nations of the world.
na-
I should like to insist on the unique importance of this fact.
It has created a tradition which
has allowed a peaceful settlement
Katly Gallian, vivacious French film star, the latest Hollywood recruit from abroad, Vive la Francal
jige.
preserved
also female suffrage, the
jury system, a militia army, a democratic school system,
B
As everywhere the fight for na- tionality crinted In Norway special towers and fruits in the letters and the arts. The Nor- wegian nation, deprived of specific diplomacy, found its on- offelal ambassadors to the work In its poets, such as Ibsen and Bjornson; in Its musicians, such as Grieg and Svendsen; in its pain- ters, such as Thaulow and Krohg: in its scientists, such as Fridtjof Nansen, to name only the most famous.
It is on these factors, political) and even economie democracy, a rich and original spiritual and artistic life, that Norway can found its claim, if claim there be, for a "place in the world."
INTERNATIONAL OUTLOOK
Because Norway, the weaker partner in its union with Sweden, could only base its claim for full independence on the principles of law and justice, it very early be came an advocate of international arbitration. When In 1889 the first Pan-American Conferenco-de-! ciared itself in favour of the pacific settlement of international; disputes, the Norwegian Storting! was the first, and for long the only. European parliament to follow suit.
In 1890, and again in 1897, it vated addresses to the King ad-
Leading The Nation in observance of Armistice Day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt took part in ceremonies before the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery near Washington, D. C. Mr. Roosevalt is flanked by his military and naval aides, Liculonant-Colonal Edwin M. Watson (right) and Captain Wilson
Brown..
vocating the conclusion of treaties strong reduction of armaments. of arbitration; this staud pro-]
cured the Norwegian Parliament)
STICTLY NEUTRAL
the so-called Oslo Convention (of) 1930), the last and the all-too- foeble rampart of that apparently
镇
the privilege of distributing the During the World War the tra- forlorn cause; and the Conserva- of most serious conflicts. In 1905
Nobel Peace Prize, founded by aditions of Norway, "looking west- tive leader, C, J. Hambro, though Sweden and Norway proceeded to exported their fish, and strong Swede. And when in 1905 the ward," inspired by democralle originally adverse to Norway's the dissolution of their union, the economic and financial conneeunion with Sweden was dissolved, principles, naturally carried the joining the League, has been last remnant of the Swedish ions were formed with these Norway insisted on and obtained sympathies of the nation to the vallant advocate of the rights of hegemony in the North, without lands, the most progressive of that an agreement that un all-camp of the Allles, though the the smaller nations within the bloodshed. Last year, in 1933,
embracing arbitration treaty Government maintained strict League and a jealous scrutinizer Norway and Denmark settled a These connections still exist: should form part of the settle neutrality throughout. With a of the League budget, disputo as to the possession of the the Norwegian krone belongs to ment. It has kept up this tradi- very big majority the Storting
A certain rugged individual- eastern coast of Greenland by the "sterling area:" it is in the tion within the League of Nations, adhered to the League of Nations, am." an outspoken sincerity, has reference to the World Court at present erials tied to the pound, having ratified both the optional the then small Labour Party, marked these and other of the The Hague, and the verdict of the and London Is the chief money clause of the World Court Statuto however, voting against, because Norwegian workers for and in the Court, which was given in favour market for Norwegian men of and the General Act of 1928: it the Covenant did not declare for League, of Denmark,
and it is particularly Wag immediately affairs. Connections have stretch has concluded all embracing complete disarmament, and until through them that Norway now executed by Norway.
ed even farther west. Norwegian treaties of arbitration and con- this day this party has maintained vindicates its **place In the Since 1900 Norway has been an ships traded also with North cillation with all its neighbours. its opposition to the League, never world." equal partner of the Scandinavian America, and from the seventies community of three, and import of last century stream of emi- aut bonds of an economic and cul-grants went to the United States, tural character are constantly inter also to Canada. The Norse- being created with the two other men are still numerous in Illinois, partners, some of these bonds ex-Minnesota, the two Dakotas; at tending also to Iceland and to one time there were more Nor- Finland. Though each of the wegians in Chicago than at Ber- three nations speaks its own langen, the second of Norway'a cities. guage, their languages are so From those countries, particu- similar in words and in phrase iarly from England, but in the logy that each of them is easily, revolutionary era also from understood by the other two. No America and from France, demo- Interpreter is needed. Therefore, cratic ideas came to Norway, and Intellectual co-operation in the they found here a receptive noil artistic, literary and scientific because the Norwegian nation was flolds is intense: professors and already thon in an economic sonse lecturora aro exchanged. con-a democratic nation. There was greases of all sorts organised, no landed aristocracy, no
royal books from one country read in court, no, or very few, rich mor- the two others, theatrical perform-chants. The bulk of the people ances given by artists from one were the peasant farmers, who, nation to the others.
from old, had a legally assured The common interests in econ- statue. omice or in politics are so strong
FARMERS' POWER that also in these fields co-opera-{ When Norway, in 1814 declared tion comes
a matter of course. ita independence from Denmark No big question is raised before and gave itself a Constitution, It the League of Nations without was to the farmors that the preliminary discussion among the potentially greatest power throo governments, and very often given. Hero Rousseau's ideas and new initiatives are taken in com-the principles of the American mon after mutual consultation, and the Fronch Revolution let But there is no question of a themsolves be falt in a particular. fusion of the three nations; each ly pronounced way. Norway be of them is bent on preserving its came the first democratic nation national Individuailty, and, with of the North, whillo Sweden, the bast will of trying to co- during the same crisis, gave itself "ordinate the interests of the three, a Constitution strongly tinged
WEB
Simon Lake, Inventor of the modern submarine, in randy, now to start his arch for $40,000,000 gold that sank with the British Frigate Hussar daring the Revalutionary War in Hellgata narrows, the penuh keduakmumise part of the East River, la the shadow of New York City's skyscraperi: "Abbye li shown the '158-foot tube affixed to the treasure-hunting submarine for probing the bottom." Enka's now: – CERTE. CAN STawi, forward, backward orïäldówlso on the river bottom, as wall as diva and rise. -
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