Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1940. DENMARK’S NEMESIS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 129, 1 May 1940, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1940. DENMARK’S NEMESIS.

Denmark, it seems, is fated to be pursued by an unkind fate. After an interlude of sturdy prosperity, during which she won a remarkable position in the world of commerce, the wheel has again completed a full turn and she is in eclipse—again the victim of the Germanic spirit. Typical of the now legendary Northern Kingdoms, whose dominant motive was “as far as possible to live peaceably with all men,” Denmark was indeed a model of inolfensiveness, for the days had long passed when the hikings were the terror of the seas. Erom the time of the Napoleonic Wars, when her policy of armed neutrality brought her into conflict with Britain, her power steadily waned until, with the disastrous war with Prussia and Austria in 1864, she was shorn of all means of adequate defence. The German invasion found her a defenceless country of a little more than three and a-lialf million people devoted to agriculture and manufacturing, seeking no territorial ambitions and content to be the world’s dairy. Greenland, Iceland,, and the Faroe Islands were her only possessions at the time of her fall—the Orkneys and Sliellands were pledged to James 111 of Scotland in 1468 and later passed to Great Britain, and in 1917 the Virgin Islands, in the West Indies, were sold to the United States. But Danish memory recalls the loss by force of arms to Prussia of Holstein in 1848 and Southern Schleswig in 1864, which Germany had retained. Now an even more vicious German spirit of conquest has clasped the entire nation within its maw, and a brave little country has for the time being at least lost its identity to become another doubtful asset on the Reich’s balancesheet.

A remarkable story of economic development under adverse circumstances stands to the record of Denmark. Not without unrelenting labour and an indomitable spirit had she won the eminence she enjoyed. Britain was her greatest customer, last year taking 60 per cent, of her dairy produce, including fifty-six million eggs, nearly 2,400,000 cwt of butter, and nearly 3,400,000 cwt of bacon. The core of this immense industry is the famous cooperative dairying system—it was as far back as 1882 that Denmark formed the first co-operative dairy in the world, the number growing until at the time of the invasion there were more than fourteen hundred. By virtue of this system the Danish farmer supplied 30 per cent, of the world’s export butter and 60 per cent, of its bacon —the severance of which trade must be thoughtfully regarded in New Zealand and by other suppliers of the British market.. The Danes are nothing if not enterprising, and it is scarcely surprising '.o learn of the comparative immensity of the mercantile fleet that has largely

been thrown upon its own resources in a difficult period. In spite of an absence of coal, iron, and water power, the engineering and shipbuilding industry has enjoyed a remarkable growth, the mercantile fleet totalling 1 more than a million tons, individual units of which rank among the world’s finest freighters. In one year alone Danish shipyards launched twenty-six large steam and motor ships, the latter propelled by Diesel engines manufactured within the country. A democratic people under a constititutional king, and governed by a bicameral Parliament elected by adult suffrage, have wrought for themselves a sterling memorial in the appreciation of all freedomloving nations. So sturdy a race are not fated by nature to be manacled to the German yoke.