DENMARK. 



233 



The movement of shipping during the year 1873-"T4 is shown by the following table : 



The aggregate length of railroads in opera- 

 tion on January 1, 1875, was 1,024.5 kilometres 

 (1 kilometre = 0.62 English mile), of which 665 

 kilometres were state railroads, and 359.5 kilo- 

 metres private roads. The length of telegraph 

 lines was 2,545.9 kilometres, of wires 7,049 

 kilometres ; the number of telegraph - offices, 

 174. The post-office forwarded in the year 

 1873-'74, 16,487,000 letters, and 15,134,000 

 newspapers. 



The statistics of live-stock were, according 

 to the latest reports, as follows : 



Horses 816,570 I Sheep 1,842,281 



Horned cattle 1,238,898 | Hogs 412,421 



The latest (1871) official reports on mutual- 

 aid societies give the following information: 

 Societies, 528 ; members, 57,288; capital, 421,- 

 375 rigsdalers. 



The Danish Legislature resumed its sessions 

 on January 6th. The President and Vice- 

 Presidents of the Folkething in the preceding 

 sessions, Krabbe, Hogsbro, and J. A. Hansen, 

 were reflected. Several speakers of the Left, 

 especially Berg and Schjorring, severely criti- 

 cised Minister Hall for incurring too large ex- 

 penses in building the new Royal Theatre. The 

 voyage of the King to Iceland, and the mission 

 of General Raasloff to Eastern Asia, were also 

 censored as too expensive. On January 12th 

 the Government introduced a bill providing for 

 the construction, within eight years, of one 

 fort each on the Sound and on each of the two 

 Belts, and for the establishment of a naval 

 station on the Agersoe Sound. The expense 

 was estimated at 10,000,000 rigsdalers. The 

 Landsthing, the higher branch of the Legisla- 

 ture, which is in sympathy with the Govern- 

 ment, while in the Folkething, or lower branch, 

 the opposition has a majority, declined to con- 

 cur in the raising of the pensions for invalids 

 which had been voted by the Folkething. Sev- 

 eral bills introduced by the Government, among 

 them one relative to teachers' salaries, were 

 rejected by the Folkething, which substituted 

 for them bills of its own. During the debate 

 relative to the proposed erection of forts, Bo- 

 jesen, in the name of the Left, wished the Gov- 

 ernment to establish as friendly relations as 

 possible with Germany, and the majority of the 

 Folkething not only shared this view, but post- 

 poned its vote on the bill until the ministry 

 should have given full information on the past 

 relations of Denmark to foreign powers, espe- 

 cially to Germany. A special committee was 

 appointed to confer with the ministry. The 

 latter declared its readiness to give all the de- 



sired information, but insisted that the Lands- 

 thing should appoint a committee for the same 

 purpose. On January 23d the Folkething, by 

 forty-seven against forty-two votes, rejected 

 the amount asked by the Government for the 

 construction of a large iron-clad frigate, al- 

 though the president of the Ministerial Council 

 threatened that the Government would dis- 

 solve the Diet. As the ministry feared that 

 an understanding with the Folkething, relative 

 to the budget, would not be reached in time 

 for the beginning of the new financial year 

 (April 1st), a provisional budget for April and 

 May was introduced, and on February 8th ap- 

 proved by the Folkething. The Landsthing 

 emphatically censured the opposition made by 

 the Folkething to the Government in the dis- 

 cussion of the budget, and, by forty-two against 

 eight votes, resolved to appoint a committee to 

 guard the constitutional rights of the Lands- 

 thing. The military committee of the Folke- 

 thing declared its readiness to vote thirty mill- 

 ion krone for the erection of forts, of new war- 

 vessels, and a naval station, if the Government 

 would consent to introduce previously, for 

 meeting this extraordinary expense, an income 

 and property tax yielding three million rigs- 

 dalers annually. The prime-minister declared 

 that the Government could not accept this 

 condition, as it regarded the proposed tax as 

 unnecessary. As it was found impossible to 

 effect an agreement between the Landsthing 

 and the Folkething, a joint committee was ap- 

 pointed, consisting of nine members of each 

 " Thing," and numbering nine members be- 

 longing to the ministerial party, and nine mem- 

 bers belonging to the opposition. This com- 

 mittee agreed, by sixteen against two votes, 

 upon a compromise, which the Folkething at 

 once adopted by a large majority, only twenty 

 members, headed by J. A. Hansen and Berg, 

 voting against it. On May 15th the Diet was 

 adjourned to October. Shortly before the ad- 

 journment three radical members of Jutland 

 introduced a motion, which was supported by 

 a petition covered with 11,714 names, chiefly 

 of socialists, that the Government be requested 

 to exert itself in behalf of the establishment 

 of a European Court of Arbitration, for the 

 peaceable settlement of international difficul- 

 ties. The motion was referred to a special 

 committee, which reported, soon after the ad- 

 journment of the Diet, that the establishment 

 of such a court was very desirable, especially 

 if it could be so constituted as to offer a secu- 

 rity for the rights of the smaller estates, but 



