COPENHAGEN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 523, 5 May 1933, Page 2

COPENHAGEN

CITY OF GpNTr?ASTS DENMARK'S CAPITAL PRESENTS BEWILDBRlMENT OF CUSTOMS. OLD AND NEW STYLES. I have never visited a city that is a mofe bewil'dering compound of the old-fashioned and tlie ultra-modern tliari Gopenhagen! I arrived in the early morning when it was stiil dai'k and my first impression was' bf blazihg lights of every shape and colour. My second impression was an unending stream of hicycles — -pedal hicyles." They ' swept along the streets in droves like great fiocks of swalldws. It was Copenhagen going to work. I had the strange impression of the Battersea Park of the 90's on the hackground of the Broadway of the 1930's. . T On further investigation 1 xouna not merely decades but centuries coming together. There is- a positively 18th century colour in the_ streets. The postmen are decked out -in smart red tunics, rather like Ehglish Gpqrdsmen. ' The members of th'e Royai hodyguard are arrayed in all the glory of Napoleonic uniforms. Yet the Royal Family have their names m the telep'hone hook1 like ordinary citizens. Prince Axel atten'ded a hoxmg match I visited and there was less iex-„.-4- — „v,f +bn-n t.hp.re is in England

over the arrival of the local hiayor. Th'ere is as deep-rooted a desire xor j peace as I have seen in any European : country, writes Rohert Beimays, M.P., in the News Chronicle. The perorations of Geneva are clothed with rea- ^ lity here. The present Governmentj is cutting the expenditure on the I army by 50 per cent. It would pfefer to abolish conscription altogether, but the Upper House stands m the Yet the memory of the war of 1864, I when Bismarck swooped down upon the provinces of Schleswig-Holstem, is still poignant. Their partial restoration urider the Trea y sailles has not blotted it out- °^e jJ ' the reasons for the eagerness to trade with Britain is a reluctanee to do business with 'Germany. Tm soldiers j are the most popular toy m Denmark, and parents tell me that m the ^great battles of the nursery it is the Ger- - mans who are always the enemy. Even in the capital city one does not easily forget that ^ one of the chief homes oi the) fairy tale Each house at Christmas seemed to ha^s its own tree, though I .must .admit that it was more often lit by candle nower than by candles. • I was puzzled at first hy the fact ii.-i. cppnnri tree along one of

the main highways clasped in its hare toanches a hundle «t corn. They were the householders' Christmas ,gift to the birds. Eight-cylinder cars may g-lide along macadamised roads, but the pleasant customs of a primitive sea-faring people must he mamtaaned The quay still looks ldte the illustrution to a bed-tme story. By the side oi the cobhled stones and the women hawking. fish is a whoie^ fleet Ii little sailing ships. Bv ery . church I entered had hangmg from its rooi a model sailing, ship. Modern Denmark has waxed iat on lts ™^ dairies, but it has not iorgotfen that it was the home of the Vikmgs. Yet at the doors is every opportunity .for sophisticated en->oy^, that themodern world has_ to ofter. There are the inevitable night cluhs exaetly the same as m London or New York, except that there are apparently no licensing restrictions and they keep open aU, nlgAA„r resThere are the vast popula taurants in the new German with a non-stop cabaret m fxo a backcloth of the There are kinemas positively frigh teSng in the ugliness oi their modern architecture; there is a State theatre, which does not Pay> vestibule and grand staircase fashion pd in g-lass and steel. There is a touch of Sidney Wehh, too. The social serviees are a» i emarkablei .as any in Enrope. X have visited what is called "the old we"' It is a garden city for tn fged p-oor. It has dining rooms and drawing rooms, a chureh, an en tainment hall, and. little gardens ^ior individual cultivation, " Wendy summer-house. I have nevex seen communal dwellings with less oi the cold shadow oi an mstitution ^Mo'sfinteresting heing made in the treatment of cri™ ' I6 seluai oflence is deflnitely re^arded as a disease . and treated as such There -is no fixed sentence of impri sonment. Those who are found guil y ,are sent for anj indefmite term to a nf rlptention which is a menta

home rather than a prison. 1 woum like to make it compuls°i.yon_ every Home Secretary to study the Danish syf have called Copenhagen a city oi contrasts. There is one «ntraj>t ^ it happily does not Sosses.!,' a"Lses is the contrast between the classes. The Danes all go to the same sc « c > , they all suhmit to the same conditions oi compulsory service m the army.In conseauence there is not 3, snobbery. I have sien^ to 3 ^ the Workhouse touch his hat to man wheeling the barrow. . , Co-operation m Denmark _ beyond marketing. There is^muc that is crude and vulgar 'in G p hagen, hut bne g.ets the stimujatmg impression of -a people roo old world handing themselves together to understand and to welcom the new.