CORRESPONDENCE
A LETTER FROM STOCKHOLM
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.'
SIR,—The success of the visit of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess to America has overshadowed all else. A himistry has fallen. The trial of an appalling murder case has come to its close. Big social and economic developments have arisen. But the royal visit to America has held more attention here than all other events combined. The Crown Prince is an outstanding figure in our national life, not merely because he is heir to the throne, but because he is a virile, active, strenu- ous personality. A year ago I aroused the laughter of some of my American friends by comparing him with Theodore Roosevelt. Maybe my friends would not laugh so whole- heartedly to-day. Everywhere in America (except, possibly, in Boston, where the arrangements seem to have been muddled) he came and he conquered. From the moment when Mayor Mitchell greeted him in New York City and from the day when he was received with full Republican honours in Washington at the opening of the John Ericsson Memorial, he has justified himself. He represents the new type of European kings. Those who knew what Prince Gustaf Adolf has done during the past few years in the daily life of the Swedish people, were least afraid of what America would think of him. And yet it comes as an encouragement to Sweden that America has acclaimed Sweden's coming King as a real man.
The visit served to call attention to the Swedish settlers in
America. The first great batches of Swedes that went to the United States were religious idealists—fanatics, if you will— men and women who abandoned families, farms and friends for their faith. They wanted to be free, and believed that only. in America could they find the freedom 'they desired, Fellowing them came the large numbers of Swedes who were driven out by acute poverty. In America—I write as one who knows both America and Sweden—the Swedish settlers were for a long time regarded as social inferiors. Even cultured Swedes who visited America sneered at them as mere clodhoppers, peasants of poor type, no worthy representative; of their intellectual and aristocratic nation. Frederica 13remer's book is proof of this. But to-day, less than two generations afterwards, the children of these peasants, blunt sailormen and glum servant maids take places among the
foremost intellectual leaders of America. If you search among the great jurists, the academic chiefs, the permanent officials in civic government, the editors of leading newspapers and the like, you will find that the Swedes have more than held their own. The Nordic characteristics that have made Sweden— honesty and hard work—have also made Swedish-America.
The change in the Ministry passed off with compara- tively little notice abroad. The Sandler Social-Democratic Government was defeated early in June through various com- plex causes. The older aristocracy and the military clans were anguished by its policy of disarmament. The King himself shared their grief and regret, and did not hesitate to say so. The big business elements were antagonized by various social experiments, notably by the desire of the Government to make permanent the eight-hour day policy and by the schemes for the relief of the unemployed. The Ministry which has succeeded them does not amount to very much. The real struggle in Sweden is between the Conserva- tives and the Social-Democrats. The Social-Democrats here are more like the old English Liberals than Communist Socialists. There is little doubt but that the Social-Democrats will come back in real force before many years are over.
Ecdnomically, Sweden is doing not badly. Leaders of some industries would, I know, violently deny this. The iron trade is in a bad state, and one or two other of the old staple industries are none too prosperous. But, Speaking generally, the country has gone through the worst and is moving forward to steadily growing prosperity. Sweden is an example of the benefits of financial rectitude. Soon after the Great War, the Government elected to put its finances on a gold basis. The bubble of artificial inflation was pricked. Many people and many firms lost heavily. Trade was checked. While our neighbours, Denmark and Norway, were enjoying a spurious prosperity, thanks to the depreciation of their currency, Sweden was hard hit. But to-day, while Denmark and Norway are emerging from the doldrums, Sweden is standing firmly on. her own feet. Swedish shipping and shipbuilding are recovering. Big specialist industries are going from prosperity to prosperity. The policy of sound currency, thorough scientific and technical training and conservative business methods pays.
The most dreadful murder trial Sweden has known for many years, the Kreuger case, closed with a sentence of imprisonment for life on both the accused. The two men, Kreuger and von Arbin, the one a youthful degenerate, the other the cold-blooded villain of the piece,, a member of one of the oldest families in Sweden, murdered the partner of von Arbin—Flyborg—by blowing him up in a taxi-cab with a heavy charge of dynamite. The trial revealed the existence of some corrupt elements. And yet, when it is all over, the impression left on one is of the essential soundness of the life of the Swedish people. One sees all around one here happy home life, kindly care for the children, good homes and an absence of sensational poverty, that give one good heart. Recently, I visited London. Within the first three hours I saw more appalling misery than I have witnessed in Stockholm in a year.
The decision of the Riksdag not to exempt the Nobel Trustees from the terrific taxation they are now enduring has caused general disappointment. The Swedish taxation that had to be paid by the Trust was in 1924, Kr. 002,000, or more than the amount paid in prizes. This has compelled it to postpone making certain awards and so to reduce the value of others that they only partly early out the original intention of the founder. Nobel, the great maker of explosives, wanted to put the world's super-men in a place where they need not worry about their daily bread. Had he had any idea that. the Government would claim the most of his beneficence in taxa- tion he would—as he easily could—have arranged to place his investments in such a way that this would have been impossible. All the intellectual forces of Sweden have sup- ported the appeal to the Government to stay its hand. It has refused, for the moment, to do so, but this refusal is probably caused by the knowledge that a reorganization of the incidence of taxation is due, and that then the reform desired by the intelligentsia of the world may fittingly be accomplished. At all events, I hope so.—I am, Sir, are., Stockholm. • YOUR STOCKHOLM CORRESPONDENT.
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