A PROSPEROUS NEUTRAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 November 1916, Page 7

A PROSPEROUS NEUTRAL.

• DENMARK IMPROVING- .TIHJ SHINING HOUR, Neutrality in a great war is niorc profitable than the most victorious fighting, and Denmark's wealth will have more than doubled if she keens out of the war and if the war lasts another couple of years. Denmark flourishes more than any European neutral. Her chief trade—butter—usually worth £8,000,000 a year, is estimn4ed "for 1916 at £22,000,000. The additional £14,000,000 is a present to the Danish farmers, for the production has not increased. Railway takings on the two chief lines have gone up 57 per.cent., and shipping companies' takings S3O per cent. After the shipping companies Denmark's farmers profit most. In South Jutland the banks are so congested with money that they refuse to pay interest on deposits. Before the war they paid <t per cent. Farmers are turning capitalists. Before the war farmers sold Germany butter at lOd a pound; now they sell it at 2s Id. Nearly all the old-fashioned farms in Jutland are being pulled down and replaced with -handsome sanitary and unpieturesque buildings with bathrooms and electric installations. The farmers have not enough cattle to supply the foreign demand, and they try to get more from Denmark and Norway, but there conditions are the same, and milch cows have gone up 300 per cent, in value. Denmark is reaping enormous profits from illegitimate trade. The illegitimate traders are mostly, not Danes, but subjects of belligerent Powers, but.the money is earned in and spent in Denmark, and Denmark profits. In spite of Germany's prohibition against exporjjjwhich was specially excepted in the case of the submarine Deutschland—a big trade is done in aniline dyes. On. the Jutland-German frontier cases of dyes are smuggled, the favorite method being to float them across the Koenissau frontier stream. The dyes go to Russia, which manufactures none. Germany winks at this traffic, because in exchange she gets light Russian goods. Denmark will not risk her wonderful prosperity by participating in V'e war. As the chief'danger is supposed to ccme from the German side, the Zahle cabinet concentrates on avoiding offence,to Germany.' The censorship 1 -prevent?' exhibition of the most innocent biograph pictures, and the telegraph censorship stops even the through transmission, of British news, which shows Germany's prospects in unfavorable light. Letters from Denmark are opened and rend, and :f they compromise Denmark's neutrality they are destroyed. Newspaper correspondents are summoned to the censorship or foreign office . and told precisely what they may say and may not say . Nevertheless, Denmark is making war preparations. Late ' Defence Minister Munck proclaimed that "no defence whatever is possible, and we must, seek our defence in diplomacy." The chief obstacle is Denmark's perverse geography. Copenhagen and nearly half Denmark's population, are on Zealand Is- ' land, which, an enemy fleet can surround and cu4 off from the Jutland mainland and the other islands of the kingdom. On Zealand Island is an army which, with local reserves, could not be raised to more than 50,000 men, which is barely enough to man Copenhagen's forts. If I war broke out, the rest of the army I would be severed, and if the campaign were fought in Jutland the 50,000 Zealand soldiers could not be sent there. The Riksdag Defence Commission says that no part of Denmark could be defended unless Denmark had an ally with a superior fleet, and the superior fleet would have to risk entangling itself in the narrow straits.

Denmark is so flourishing that "insurance against peace" is the crder of tile day. Farmers, land speculators, gamblers, in the rouble and mark, and contraband kings all take out policies against peace as they would against death, marine loss, or any other: misfortune,' Wise Danes believe that if only the war lasts another couple of years all the belligerents' wealth will be in neutral possession,, only the neutral countries will be wealthy, and Denmark, in proportion to its microseopie population, will be richest of all. Xi wonder that business, butter and sound diplomacy are the watchwords of every Dane.