The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1915 SCANDINAVIA’S NEUTRALITY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 39, 17 February 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1915 SCANDINAVIA’S NEUTRALITY.

Speaking of the meeting of the rulers of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, to discuss the northern nations’ position, the London Daily News describes the gathering as an interesting episode of some significance. The purpose of the meeting was to express the good relationship between the Scandinavian countries, and to unite them for the • maintenance of absolute neutrality during the war. It is pointed out that despite kinship in race and language, the political sympathies between the three Scandinavian lands have not always been as cordial as they ought to* be. The secular conflicts between I Denmark and Sweden make up much of the sort of history on which the children of these two lands are fed, and any attentive person who travels' there will note it reflected in common j speech. The separation between Swe-I den and Norway is too recent not to I have left some soreness behind. If i however, the London journal considers, this war has brought the Northern peoples nearer together, it will not be a calamity without any sort of compensation. The policy of absolute neutrality upon which this deeper understanding rests has the heartiest good wishes of English people. Front the j beginning of the war England has been most anxious that the Scandinavian lands should remain outside the area of conflict. That has apparently not been Germany’s desire. The Ger-j man Government seems to have hoped to embroil Sweden with Russia, and in many of the German reconstructions of Europe Scandinavia is to he rewarded with a little booty in return fori hitching herself to the German star.' It was also imagined that the northern countries could be turned against Great Britain because of the check upon trade in contraband. None of these things has happened. On the contrary, the blockade of the Baltic by the German fleet and the indiscriminate sowing of mines in those waters have alienated sympathy from Germany. And matters grow worse in this respect rather than better.