770 



SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 



public debt are set down as 10,187,932, and the 

 balance to be carried over as 2,196,905 crowns, 

 which makes the budget of expenditures bal- 

 ance the total receipts. The army and the ec- 

 clesiastical establishment are maintained main- 

 ly from the produce of the domainial estates, 

 which are not entered in the budget, nor are the 

 304,700 crowns contributed for foreign affairs 

 by Norway. The cost of education is defrayed 

 in great part out of the communal and provin- 

 cial revenues. 



The public debt of Sweden was contracted 

 entirely for the construction of railroads. The 

 total amount outstanding on January 1, 1882, 

 was 234,715,896 crowns. Of this 34,843,500 

 consisted of the internal loans of 1870 and 1872, 

 at 5 and 4 per cent interest respectively ; 190,- 

 872,396 crowns was the amount of the foreign 

 loans contracted at 4 and 5, and latterly at 4 

 per cent interest, in England, Germany, and 

 France, the last of which was raised in 1880, 

 and amounts to 70, 785,000 crowns; and 9,000,- 

 000 crowns constitute an unfunded loan of 

 1879, repay able 'before November 1, 1885. 



LEGISLATION. The Swedish Diet separated 

 May 22d, after a session of four months' dura- 

 tion. The great questions of the regulation of 

 the land-tax and the reorganization of the army 

 have been before the country many years. A 

 number of ministries have been shipwrecked 

 in the effort to effect these reforms, which are 

 intimately connected with one another. The 

 present ministry proceeds more cautiously with 

 the army reform. The development of a mili- 

 tary force upon modern models of the most 

 modest proportions would require a considera- 

 ble augmentation of the revenue, of which there 

 is no prospect. The present organization is 

 sufficient to permit a military demonstration 

 with 20,000 men, which will meet every re- 

 quirement, as Sweden has little to fear from its 

 neighbors. The military and naval items in 

 the budget were voted, with the exception of 

 that for continuing the fortifications at Carls- 

 borg, which was considerably reduced. The 

 more important subject of the readjustment of 

 the land-taxes, which press very unequally 

 upon the small owners, is dealt with only in 

 vague promises. The Posse Ministry is a busi- 

 ness Cabinet, which offers no political pro- 

 gramme. It commands no firm majority in 

 the Diet, but in its conservative course, while 

 the resources of the country are slowly devel- 

 oping, it obtains a support from all parties, 

 though the rural party, from which the Prime 

 Minister came himself, opposes many of his 

 financial measures as extravagant. The com- 

 mittee on the national defense developed a 

 plan in December, by which the regular army 

 would be increased to 25,000 men, and a re- 

 serve maintained which would furnish a total 

 war effective of about 75,000 men for the field 

 army. The Diet rejected by a considerable 

 majority the proposition to introduce corn du- 

 ties. A resolution in favor of extending the 

 right of suffrage was passed by a decided ma- 



jority in the Second Chamber, but was rejected 

 by the First Chamber. 



NOEWAY. AREA AND POPULATION. The 

 area of Norway is 122,869 square miles. The 

 total population, according to the last decennial 

 census, taken December 31, 1875, was 1,806,- 

 900, divided into 876,762 males and 930,138 

 females. The town population was 326,420; 

 rural population, 1,480,480. The population 

 in 1880 was estimated at 1,913,500. The num- 

 ber of marriages in 1880 was 12,585 ; of 

 births, 58,862 ; of deaths, 30,532 ; excess of 

 births, 28,330. Besides the Norwegians prop- 

 er, there were, in 1875, 7,594 Finns, 14,645 

 settled Lapps, 1,073 nomad Lapps, and 8,396 

 of mixed blood. The number of foreign-born 

 residents was 37,350, of whom 29,340 were 

 Swedes, and the rest chiefly Finlanders, Danes, 

 and Germans. Besides the adherents of the 

 state Church, there were 2,759 Methodists, 

 1,184 Reformed Lutherans, 819 Baptists, 542 

 Mormons, 502 Roman Catholics, 432 Quakers, 

 and 1,000 of other denominations. The fol- 

 lowing cities contained over 20,000 inhabitants ; 

 Christiania, 76,054; Bergen, 34,388; Trond- 

 hjem, 22, 544 ; Stavanger, 20,288. The emi- 

 gration for the last ten years, reported, was as 

 follows: 1871, 12,276; 1872, 13,865; 1873, 

 10,352; 1874,4,601 ; 1875, 4,048; 1876, 4,355; 

 1877, 3,206; 1878,4,863; 1879,7,608; 1880, 

 20,212. 



COMMERCE. The average value of the total 

 imports in the years 1876-'80 was 161,300,000 

 crowns; of the exports, 102,300,000 crowns. 

 The staple exports are timber and wood, fish, 

 and, in smaller quantities, pig-iron and copper- 

 ore. The total imports in 1881 amounted to 

 164,997,000 crowns; in 1880, 150,871,000 

 crowns. Total exports in 1881, 120,934,000 

 crowns; in 1880, 108,739,000 crowns. The 

 largest trade in 1881 was with the following 

 countries : 



The imports from the United States in 1881 

 were 2,929,000 crowns in value, and the ex- 

 ports to the United States 62,000 crowns. 



The number of arrivals in Norwegian ports 

 in 1880 was 11,556 vessels, of 1,971,209 aggre- 

 gate tonnage, of which 6,703 vessels, of 1,337,- 

 294 tons, were Norwegian, and 5,688, of 982,- 

 096, or less than half, with cargoes. Norway 

 has the largest merchant fleet, in proportion to 

 her population, of any country. The number 

 of vessels at the end of 1880 was 8,095, against 

 6,993 in 1870; the aggregate registered ton- 

 nage, 1,518,658, against 1,007,908; the number 

 of sailors employed, 60,832, against 49,337. 





