CORRESPONDENCE
A LETTER FROM . STOCKHOLM
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
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Sih,—While most of the Zest of the world is singing the praises of Mr. Osten Linden, Siveden's Foreign Minister, 'a Large section of the Stockholm Press has treated him somewhat harshly. It depicts him as a somewhat burnfitious- School. boy who foolishly attempted to . pit his wits against the master minds of- European diplomacy. "Oh, for another Branting I " exclaim men who, when Branting, the first great Social-Democratic leader, was alive, never tired of sneering at him. Much of this deprecation of the present Parliamentary leaders is due to party temper, which runs high here. Bid in truth both Mr. Sandler, the Premier, and Mr. linden are winning ever-growing public con- fidence and esteem. WhenMr. Sandler (once a schoolmaster) succeeded Braiding, thegiant, there was a tendency to treat him as a nonentity. But he has steadily developed both as orator and party leader. His greatest asset is his undoubted sincerity and single-mindedness. Osten Unden, son of a Stockholm apothecary—an honoured and privileged calling here—looks the young University professor he is. Before he became Foreign Minister he was the expert in international law at the Foreign Office. His friends will tell you that his Characteristic is his consuming passion for international justice. There are signs that the wave of bitter criticism here which followed his work at Geneva has exhausted itself.: While Sweden's Scandinavian neighbours, Denmark and Norway, are In the midst of an acute financial and-industrial crisis, Sweden is increasingly prosperous. There is no boom here and nothing resembling a boom, but trade continues to expand slowly and steadily. Even the shipping situation shows signs of improving, as is evidenced by the optimistic report recently issued by the directors of the Swedish _American line. Swedish manufacturers are more than holding their own in- the foreign markets. Swedish inventions continue to win world-wide appreciation : note the remarkable recent record of Electrolux. The Swedish Match Trust seems each month to score a fresh. triumph. It has now secured State monopolies in Poland and Peru, and it can undersell the Japanese in Asia. It works in close accord with its former American rival, and the to are closely united by financial and com- mercial agreements.
There is much social legislation here which bears heavily on employers, but against this we have the good relations that exist between Swedish masters and men. Many of the great factories are managed on a paternal basis. Generation after generation of families work for the same firm. When trade is slack the employer exercises his ingenuity to create fresh tasks, instead of cutting down his hands. When trade is brisk, the workers take a pride in beating their own records. Swedish trade successes are won mainly by high-grade production, as in the telephone industry, in shipbuilding—where it can now underbid Germany and compete seriously with England—in refrigerating machinery, in the highest grades of steel, in ball bearings and in electric apparatus. - The first visit of the Crown Prince and
Th Crown Princess to America—they left Gothenburg in the motor ship 'Grips- holm' on May 18th—is bound to be an overwhelming success. The ostensible occasion of the visit is the unveiling of the statue of John Ericsson at Washington, but after this is over -they will make a long tour from the Atlantic to the Pacific, interviewing industrial and scientific leaders like Mr. Edison and Mr. Henry Ford, studying American educational matters and making holiday in the Rockies and in California. The gnat reverence with which royalty was once regarded in Sweden has gone. Twenty years ago, when a prince walked down the street, every man's cap came off. To-day a prince might march the length of Strandvilgen without a single greeting, save from a personal friend. But the personal popu- larity of the royal family is at least as great as ever. King Gustav, simple, unassuming, kindly, untiring, is loved by all. The Crown Prince has secured a firm place in popular esteem. He works hard, he mixes freely with all classes, and he is simple, direct and frank-spoken. If there is any great event in sight, be it a religious conference or an international sporting competition, you will-find the Crown Prince not merely at the head of the list 'of the committee, but one of the hardest workers to makeithe thing a Success. •
All Sweden has been appalled by an atrocious murder. Two young well-known business men placed their drunken partner in a taxi-cab, fixed a dynamite bomb to the rear of the car, and blew him to bits. Sweden has a very low crime record. One great jail in Stockholm is wholly empty. I suppose there are more murders on certain weeks in one notorious American city than in a year in the whole of this country. But the
Kungsholm murder" has caused a certain searching of hearts. Are there forces at work in this country tending to sap moral soundness ? Is the influence of the American film which dominates our picture theatres for good or ill ? Many think that it is, on the whole, for ill, fostering a false idea of life. Has the nation become self-indulgent ? Why is it that Sweden's birth-rate and Stockholm's birth-rate in particular are the lowest in the world ? Can it be that the determination to secure peace and prosperity is sapping higher.ideals ? It is well that a nation should ask itself these questions, and Sweden is to-day asking them frankly.
The disarmament question may once more become at any moment a supreme political issue. The Government carried last year a scheme for .a drastic reduction of both naval and military expenditure, to be followed later on by still further cuts. , The plan of the Social-Democratic party here, as in Denmark, is to rely for defence mainly on submarines, aero- planes, and a well-paid military gendarmerie. This involves the eventual scrapping of almost all, capital ships and the abolition of historically famous Swedish regiments. It is an open secret that the King does not like this, but as a constitu- tional monarch he feels himself obliged to follow the wishes of the nation's representatives. The Conservative leader, Admiral Lindrnan, a breezy, active figure, tried to .raise the question of the disarmament policy afresh at the opening of the Riksdag, but failed. Admiral Lindman has, however, many supporters and may bp able, to put up a good fight at the next election. The Finnish Government is openly uneasy over the, disarma- ment campaigns in Scandinavia. Finland lies in the deep shadow of Soviet Russia. Eight years ago the Finnish Com- munists, with Russian aid and Russian arms, tried to conquer Finland, ; Even the Finnish women are organized and drilled.
for national defence. .
If the rest of Europe realized the beauty of Stockholm we should need to build a fresh city to hold our yisitors. Summer is at hand and the Swedish summer is among the best in the world. The winter 1925.1925 was unusually severe and the seas around us were largely frozen. There were many stories from the further North, of weather colder than Sweden has ever known before, and of the monster werewolves which came from the Arctic North, so big that they seemed to belong to another planet.—! am, Sir, &c., YOUR STOCKHOLM CORRESPONDENT.
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