NORWAY RENASCENT
By T. K. DERRY "ORWAY and France the Brokers of the Peace Conference "
N- a large claim to make, even on a newspaper placard, for a people of less than three millions. It is evidence of the new self- confidence which the war has given to Norway. It is also evidence of her fidelity to the policy which Mr. Trygve Lie adumbrated as Foreign Minister in exile amidst the perplexities of 1942, when he described Norway's function as a link between the Great Powers to east and west of her, thus making his own fortune and perhaps his country's. This policy was directly responsible for the painful decision to cancel the official plans for Mr. Churchill's visit after the Fulton speech ; and it is now so .much a matter of course that a Greek General, interviewed by the Norwegian Press on the workings of modern Greek democracy, was able to turn the subject by sug- gesting that he had come north for advice on how to keep the middle path in international affairs.
Geographical or geo-political considerations are no doubt of prime importance, but Norway is helped to steer a middle course by her harmonious domestic situation. Food-supplies have improved steadily since liberation, and are now pretty much on a level with our own—rather lower in terms of official rations, but more widely supplemented than ours by' private dealings in farm produce— which in itself goes far to create a feeling of confidence after four years of horse-meat rissoles and middle cuts of shark. The general economic outlook is likewise optimistic, with unemployment virtually non-existent and part at least Of the colossal wartime earnings of the mercantile marine available for overseas purchases. The housing shortage is, indeed, to all appearance as acute as our own—a re- markable phenomenon in view of Norway's almost complete immunity from urban industrial bombing and the fact that none of the principal towns was involved either in the unhappy campaign of 1940 or in the far more destructive harrying of the north by the Germans during their retreat before the Russians in Finnmark.
The guess may be hazarded that the suspension of normal building activities during the war years is the main factor in a country where, judged by British standards, the life of a house (normally of timber construction) is short and the ratio of rooms to inmates low. But whatever its cause, the treatment of the emergency shows a resolve to see justice done to the " have-nots ", which goes far to assuage unrest. The general basis is the rationing of living-space at the rate of one room per persion, exclusive of domestic offices, which has meant in actual practice the inspection by the local authority of all dwelling-houses, the listing of their regular occupants, and the allocation of all space in excess of the ration at a standard rent (unfurnished) to persons selected by the authority at its discretion. There is no element of personal choice.
It may be doubted whether the middle class, which even in Norway clings as hard as it dare to its own standard of life, could have been brought to accept such a systematic invasion of the home in pre-war days. But here, in marked contrast with the experience of so many occupied territories, the war has left behind it a sense of unification, alincist a family feeling. The very opposite might be inferred from the numerous treason trials still in progress in every part of the country. Knut Hamsun's wife, for instance, who joined Quisling's party and went on a lecture tour to Germany, has just been sentenced to three years' hard labour in the local court of the obscure fishing town where Ibsen once served as an apothecary's assistant. But the fact that the sentences, which do not appear to erg on the side of leniency, arouse little political discussion empha- sises Norway's immunity from the curse of class collaboration with the Germans, which has perpetuated discord elsewhere. Material losses, apart from the heavy loss of ships in Allied service, have been of such dimensions as to call forth a united national effort rather than the general pessimism which in less fortunate countries casts a shadow over the whole future of the nation.
Above all, there is the remarkably small cost of the war in human life, officially estimated at 8,000, including civilian casualties, which enables Norway's baptism of fire to act as a stimulating rather than a chastening influence on the national life. Success won at such a relatively small price in the only modem war in which Norway has taken part as an independent Power has inevitably drawn the people together with an enhanced feeling of self-reliance and self-assurance. The glorification of the monarchy, remarkable to those who remember its modest role in former days, is the romantic outward symbol ; but it is the rallying of all classes round the principles of social democracy which actually shapes the future, in foreign as well as domestic affairs.
The interest in the outside world was always great. Perhaps it is only his long unfamiliarity with the scope of a 16-page newspaper which makes the visitor to Norway feel that the present scale of reporting of world events exceeds, not merely our meagre news- ration today, but her own pre-war practice. Scandinavian news is of course prominent, but the preference given to the economic and cultural, rather than political, activities of her neighbours emphasises that for Norway Scandinavianism is still more a matter of sentiment than of system. This is the more surprising since the . war has degraded Sweden from her traditional place as the "eldest brother," the volubly criticised yet inevitable leader in any common enterprise ; and, although Norwegian-Danish relations are now on a happier foot- ing than at any time since the East Greenland dispute, Denmark's position is too exposed, whatever the ultimate fate of North Ger- many may be, for her to deny an informal leadership to Norway, if she chose to take it. It would be pleasant to attribute Norway's refusal to identify herself with any such Scandinavian bloc to her friendship with Britain, consolidated by the war and made abundantly evident to every one of the 4,000 passengers that a very inadequate steamship service has brought across the North Sea this summer. But that friendship, which also finds widespread expression in the newspapers, is one which now blends admiration with sympathy. London correspondents depict our domestic situation in a way which provokes interest rather than envy, and. our handling of imperial and international problems; as seen through their eyes, is evidence of British goodwill, but not of British strength.
Such institutions as the British Council labour manfully to con- solidate our position in Norway, but political realism must make us
recognise that the Great Power to the east requires no such labour to consolidate hers. The existence of a small but active Communist Party, which won general respect in the Resistance movement ; a
tradition of respect for the Russian Revolution, which in Norway
alone among the Northern and Western Powers dates back to the Civil War period, in regai'd to which Russian memories are, longer than ours ; a spontaneous interest in Russian cultural and scientific achieve- ments ; and, above all, the re-establishment of the common frontier in Finnmark, to which Norwegian policy was so sensitive in Czarist days—these are all factors which tend to make the middle course
to some extent congenial and manifestly expedient. But the fact that Norway is less firmly orientated than we might suppose towards Britain and towards the west is not necessarily a misfortune. If Mr.
Noel-Baker was justified in suggesting, as he did to an appreciative Oslo public the other day, that the influence of Nansen, had he lived, might have prevented the second world war, we may equally believe that his fellow-countrymen, in adopting medio tutissimus ibis as their motto now, are serving other and larger interests than their own.
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