13 MAY 1938, Page 17

* * * * A Danish Achievement An invitation has

reached me to attend a ceremony that should really help to cure those who favour an urban civilisa- tion. The Danes are to celebrate in Copenhagen, that most beautiful northern capital, the t5oth anniversary of the abolition of villeinage and the freeing of the peasants. This deliberate and most beneficent act made Denmark a model for the nation; then as today. Very nearly 8o per cent. of the land is farm land, and a very great deal of it farmed by small holders on units of land round about 25 acres. One may say that there is no class of agricultural labourer. Some paid farm workers there are, of course, and some land is rented, and very highly rented ; but the men whom we should call small- holders are the master class, and they have helped magni- ficently to raise the general culture of the country. It is a curious example of the influence of material invention on both politics and culture that co-operation in agriculture, which was and is the chief cause of Denmark's success, was induced by the invention of the cream-separator. Shall we see an honoured place given to it in the National Agri- cultural Exhibition (the greatest of its kind ever organised in Scandinavia) that opens in Copenhagen on June t7th ? The contrast between Danish and English husbandry was most abruptly contrasted during the great depression fifty years ago. Cheap wheat and grain killed our farmers. The Danes rejoiced at the low price. " Now," they argued, " we can feed our stock cheaply," and to this end they reorganised their system.