A battleground of economic pressure, political propaganda, and commercial intrigue. The Germans strive for iron ore from Sweden, fish from Norway, and dairy products from Denmark. They use Sweden as a friendly link in their communication with the outside world. The German influence in Sweden is more successful than in Norway or Denmark, though the Norwegians calmly accept the sinking of their ships by German submarines. The chief strategic advantage which the Scandinavian countries could confer on either side is the control of the entrance to the Baltic, although Sweden could exert a military pressure on Finland. Norway could afford useful naval bases for the Allies. Denmark, on the other hand, could hardly defend herself from Allied attack by sea or German attack by land pened afterward. Both Sweden and Denmark seemed a little drunk with the joy of their first escape, and under its influence they became somewhat inclined to think that they might be permitted to carry on business as usual, regardless of the world-war raging at their very doorsteps. Suddenly they saw Opportunity with her cornucopia beckoning to them, and for a while they forgot almost everything else. That roseate dream, out of which they were awakened by the British and German blockade declarations, forms the background against which their subsequent experiences must be seen in order to be properly appreciated. Even in those early days, however, there were simple minds that sensed the real danger. I heard of a peasant conscript who rose out of the trench he was digging on one of the islands in the northern part of the Stockholm archipelago, wiped the sweat off his brow, and yelled to his fellow diggers: S I A "Why the deuce are we slaving away here? The Germans won't come this way!" Exportation was the national motto in those days. Germany and Russia were ready to buy anything at any price. Forebodings of impending scarcity seemed in particular to have driven the Germans into a Automobile tires are scarce in Denmark and consequently sort of shopping have skyrocketed in price. mania. The Grand A single tire sold for $540 there Hotel at Stockholm last October and the Palace Hotel at Copenhagen were packed with people who appeared to have no other purpose in life than to spend money. The most fabulous stories are told about the bargains struck and the profits made. I know of one big steamer at Stockholm which put in a load that would have made Noah's Ark seem utterly lacking in variety. It contained everything from old breech-loaders to baby bottles, from cod-liver oil to Japanese sunshades. Every last fragment within its bulging sides was paid for in cash, and then, in the end, it never got away at all. The Stockholmians laughed Homerically, prodded each other's ribs like old vikings, and shouted with each "skål" they drank: "And those Germans used to speak of us as 'die dummen Schweden'-the stupid Swedes!" Those days were too good to last long. The vanguard of irresponsible speculators had to give way to properly authorized agents. The German thrift began to assert itself. The English blockade began to take on tangible forms. Opportunity was still abroad with a well-filled horn of plenty, but she had to be snared and wooed. Exportation, which had been a joke until then, turned gradually into a menace. The country was swiftly and systematically stripped of all its stored-up supplies. Quick fortunes were made at the expense of the future. No thought was taken of to-morrow. The Government talked loudly of the obligations of neutrality, of international safeguards, of the freedom of the high seas, and so on. The upper classes, who were making all the gains, raged at the slightest at tempt at interference on the part of the Allies. But the workmen, who were already beginning to feel the pinch of rising prices, asked more and more insistently whether, after all, the policy pursued might not be unwise and dangerous. I recall the question put to me by a shopkeeper in a small country town, who knew nothing whatever about my sympathies or opinions: "Why should the English and the Americans go on sending us things, if we have not got sense enough to keep them for ourselves?" When at last the combined pressure of the people from within and the Allied Governments from without forced the Swedish authorities to realize that nothing but radical measures would help, it was too late. The country had been set in the wrong direction. Distrust had been created abroad. Shipping was becoming more and more hazardous. Prices were getting out of bounds. Shortages were discovered in one commodity after another. Export prohibitions could not preserve what had already been sent away. Maximum prices and rationings availed little when there was nothing to which they could be applied. Confiscation itself failed to bring relief because the supplies thus gathered often fell short of one tenth of the country's normal needs. The wolf was no longer at the doorhe was inside the house! There you have the history of one small neutral during the war-told from within, so to speak. I have chosen this manner of telling it, because I wish to make the fullest possible allowance for any responsibility incurred by the suffering nation itself. The simple truth of the matter is that responsibility does not count: Norway and Denmark, with different governments and different policies, are at this moment little if any better off than Sweden. Having granted the worst, however, I can with a clear conscience produce some ameliorating circumstances which also Gasolene, likewise, is difficult to obtain, and the price of it is prohibitive-last October, it was $2 a gallon are valuable chiefly because they are typical. First of all should be borne in mind the precarious position occupied by Sweden and her sister nations between the anvil and the hammer-between the conflicting needs and wills of the two belligerent groups. This position is splendidly illustrated by an incident which occurred in a Norwegian coast town, where one of the Allied Powers has a consul gifted with more zeal than discretion. One night he attended a concert given by the local Philharmonic Society. Hardly had the orchestra got under way, when a terrific whistling broke in upon its harmonies and made it stop. A puzzled and scared member of the society made his way to the consul, who proved to be the disturber. holm "You are playing German music," the little man replied irately to the request for an explanation. "It was Halvorsen's 'The Entrance of the Boyars' a Russian theme treated by a Norwegian composer," protested the other man. 'All right," said the consul, "then you can go on.' have any more coal, Sweden had to turn to Germany, who promptly demanded butter and pork in compensation. In 1916 Sweden got more than 4,000,000 tons of coal and coke from Germany, who in return got most of Sweden's export of 14,000 tons of pork and 13,000 tons of butter, while England got next to nothing. Then England stopped all Swedish imports of oils and fats needed for the manufacture of margarine. This manufacture was brought to an end, and last year Sweden was unable to export a single ton of butter. In fact, she had to make a special arrangement for importation of butter from Denmark. The scarcity and consequent abnormal prices of motoring necessities-tires and gasolene, Another illustration. Russia refor example-have necessarily affected the use of pleasure fused to release a number of Swedcars. Recently there were only ish vessels tied up in her harbors 17 taxicabs operating in Stock- at the beginning of the war. There was nothing to do about this until England began to bring out a large number of her vessels that had been lying in Swedish and Finnish ports, using the Kogrund Channel which runs through Swedish territorial waters at the southwestern corner of Scania. The passing of those vessels formed a constant temptation to the German guardboats, many of which refused to respect the territorial rights of Sweden, thus endangering her neutrality. So the Swedish Government mined the channel in question and closed it to all foreign ships, peaceful or warlike. The idea was to kill two birds with one stone: to stop German violations of Swedish rights, and to get the Swedish vessels out of Russian ports. Unfortunately the Swedish Government was not happy in its choice of methods. It said. "by your leave" to the more dangerous neighbor in the south, while practically telling the Allies that it was none of their business what Sweden did with her own waters. Then England began to hold up Swedish shipping, and in the end Sweden had to open up the Kogrund Channel again-but not until she had said "by your leave" to Germany once more and paid for the desired permission by the exportation of 10,000 horses. Don't you see, too, how the exigencies of the war have turned the foreign policy of a small neutral country into a piece of knitting, where every stitch hangs together with all the rest so that you cannot tell where responsibility begins or ends? Compromises and conciliations have been a necessity at every turn. Often arrangements with one group have been concluded with the tacit understanding of the other. Thus it has been perfectly agreed on both sides that Denmark was to send one half of her butter to Germany and the other half to England. In the same way Norway has had to give three eighths of her fish to Germany and the remaining five eighths to England. The opposed governments agreed, but when the public on either side found out that something was going to the enemy, there was generally a row and trouble for the Danes and the Norwegians in regard to the supplies wanted by them in return. Sweden used to export 20,000 tons of butter annually, most of it to England and France. To be able to do so, she manufactured 30,000 tons of margarine for home consumption. She also used to export about 10,000 tons of pork annually, mostly to England. From England she used to take some 5,000,000 tons of coal and coke per year, this representing her direst need next to grain. When England became unwilling or unable to let Sweden Amelioration may also be sought in the With the strength of high mountains and a good army holding a strategic position in the middle of the battle line that stretches from Nieuport on the English channel to Venice on the Adriatic. Because of this position and because part of its population is German [the larger part] and part French, Switzerland is the most active centre of propaganda and intrigue. German peace drives against the Allies and Allied drives against autocracy in Germany are launched from Switzerland, and the country is rife with the spies of all countries Holland lives by the sea and therefore cannot break with England, and she lives next to Germany and therefore cannot break with the Germans, especially with the horrors of Belgium staring at her from across only an electrified and guarded boundary line. She is, however, subject to propaganda and pressure from both sides, Germany trying to get foodstuffs either grown in Holland or imported, and the Allies trying to prevent this commerce with Germany. The Dutch privations are hard, but small compared with those of Belgium or Serbia or France or England, and her liberty is almost as surely gone if Germany wins as is Belgium's-so for this reason, in spite of German efforts, the majority of Hollanders are pro-Ally As indicated by the figures for 1915 and 1916 in the ten items listed in the table. An interesting commentary on Scandinavia's "prosperity," however, is contained in the remark of a Norwegian that "we have nothing but money over here now," and a column of "exchange" advertisements in a Gothenberg daily newspaper that deals exclusively with such staple commodities as kerosene, candles, oatmeal, coke, soap, potatoes, etc., these staples being offered in exchange, one for another. Money is not offered in a single instance, the implication being that each of these staples is considered so precious that no one hopes to get it except in exchange for something else of equal value for German subjects during the first part of the war to do many things which the Swedish Government could not stop without special legislation. In 1915 the German head of a firm at the little Swedish city of Landskrona on the Sound chartered three German steamers to ship 40,000 bags of wheat flour and 6,000 bags of jute to Stockholm. Everything was done with the most careful observation of all legal requirements. But hardly had the three steamers left the Sound and Swedish territorial waters than they made straight for the nearest German port. The guilty shipper was prosecuted, but nothing could be done beyond imposing a fine on him. in Germany." I know of one big New York firm that discharged every employee from its Stockholm branch as soon as the situation over there was brought home to them by their own appearance on the British black-list. The discharged German manager promptly started a firm of his own, giving it a name practically duplicating the old one, and the In the spring of 1916 ordinary low-grade walking shoes in Sweden had increased in price to $11 a now $25 pair. They are a pair Large quantities of American pork and cotton passed through Sweden to Germany during the first two years of the war, but I don't think America should insist too much on Swedish responsibility in this matter, as our own citizens seem to have had something to do with the traffic in question. Several large American export firms have branches at Stock American sent over to take charge in his place had a tough job convincing the English of the difference between the two concerns. This kind of game went on until America came into the war herself. Let us now leave the question of responsibility aside and turn instead to the conditions produced in Sweden by all the various elements set in motion by the war. These conditions may be summed up by saying that life has been rendered more simple by the elimination of luxuries, but that it has been more than proportionately complicated by the difficulty of obtaining necessities. And it is with necessities that we are concerned here. Last February I wrote to my wife from Stockholm: |