292 



DENMARK. 



Democrats in two of its ten wards and Social- 

 ists in two others. The Ministerial party and 

 the Opposition maintained the same strength 

 as in the last Rigsdag, but in the Opposition 

 there was a decided shifting of the equilibrium 

 in the direction of radicalism. The Moderates 

 lost many seats to the Radical, or International, 

 or European Left, representing advanced ideas 

 in religious and educational matters, and to the 

 more extreme factions. 



The triumph of the popular party in Norway 

 stimulated the Danish party that was battling 

 for the same principles. There was a project 

 of popular demonstrations in front of the royal 

 palace, such as had taken place in 1848 and 

 1863, to demand the dismissal of the ministers. 

 The Government, by creating a Ministry of 

 War under the energetic Colonel Bahnsen, and 

 by various precautionary measures, indicated a 

 determination to proceed to violent repression 

 upon the slightest provocation. The idea of a 

 popular army of volunteer corps, on the pat- 

 tern of the Norwegian rifle bands, was enter- 

 tained. In February, 1885, a multitude of ap- 

 plications were made for admission into the 

 Copenhagen Rifle Corps, the only body having 

 access to the military shooting-grounds near 

 the capital. Suspicion was aroused, and, as the 

 great majority of the body were political ad- 

 herents of the Government, the applicants were 

 refused admission. This action was the occa- 

 sion of a series of indignation meetings and 

 street demonstrations, which the authorities 

 suppressed by rigorous means. 



The Opposition in the Folkething counted 80 

 of the 102 members. In the beginning of the 

 session Berg formed out of the Farmers' party 

 a group called the National, or Danish Left, 

 numbering 50 members, which separated from 

 the International Left, or the sections holding 

 advanced ideas and betraying socialistic tend- 

 encies. The extreme ideas were represented 

 by a new organ, the " Politiken," edited by the 

 talented brothers Dr. G. and E. Brandes, which 

 supported Berg's Radical rival Horup. 



The Session of the Legislature. The regular 

 opening of the session of the Rigsdag was 

 postponed, on account of the burning of the 

 Christiansberg Castle, till the beginning of 

 November, 1885. The Opposition were united 

 in the desire to upset the Estrup ministry, but 

 harmony no longer prevailed on questions of 

 tactics or of principle. The Ultras were not 

 satisfied with Berg's plan of withholding legis- 

 lation. They wished to resort to more ex- 

 treme measures, or at least to refuse to vote 

 the budget. The debate over the financial 

 law lasted in the Folkething till the end of 

 February. In the middle of February the Gov- 

 ernment presented a provisional budget to en- 

 able it to defray the necessary expenses for 

 April in case the budget was not passed before 

 the end of the financial year. This provisional 

 budget no longer took the last regular budget 

 as a measure of the necessary expenditures, but 

 the budget estimate of the Government, includ- 



ing the long-disputed items for the fortification 

 of Copenhagen and other extraordinary expen- 

 ditures. The Folkething had already struck 

 out the seventh part of the total sum of the 

 Government draught budget. It voted a provis- 

 ional budget in the old form, but the Lands- 

 thing substituted the form now demanded by 

 the Government. The regular budget was sent 

 up to the Landsthing with reductions amount- 

 ing to between 7,000,000 and 8,000,000 kroner. 

 With the assent of the ministry, the Lands- 

 thing agreed to cut it down about 3,000,000 

 kroner, but the Folkething stood by its decis- 

 ion. On March 26 the joint committee of both 

 houses met, but without any prospect of an 

 agreement. A Moderate Liberal proposed to 

 enable the Government to defray necessary 

 expenses for the first two weeks of the new 

 financial year, so that the chambers would 

 have time to continue the discussion, but the 

 resolution was voted down. On the evening 

 of March 31 the Government party in the 

 joint committee proposed to place 3,000,000 

 kroner at the disposal of the administration. 

 This proposition was rejected likewise. The 

 following day the Rigsdag was closed by royal 

 message. For the first time a message of pro- 

 rogation was sent to each house separately. 

 In the Folkething it was read to almost empty 

 benches, as the Opposition members had de- 

 monstratively left the hall previously. Both 

 parties issued manifestoes, that of the Minis- 

 terialists declaring the Opposition responsible 

 for the incalculable dangers of the existing 

 state of affairs, and the other protesting against 

 the oppression and violence perpetrated on the 

 popular representation and the violation of the 

 Constitution by the Government. In the mid- 

 dle of March the Folkething had voted an 

 address to the King, praying for the dismissal 

 of the Cabinet. "Since the Landsthing," it 

 said, " by rejecting the provisional budget, has 

 deprived the legislature of the chance of dis- 

 cussing the differences with deliberation, the 

 prospect of an agreement is less probable than 

 ever. The Thing can not allow it to come to a 

 definite breach, and to an incalculable chain of 

 ruinous conflicts, without again addressing an 

 earnest and reverent word to the King of the 

 land, whose high calling it is to stand above the 

 parties, and whose noblest prerogative is to let 

 peace and conciliation succeed bitter strife." 

 The King was told that it depended upon his 

 decision to retain or to dismiss the ministers, 

 " whether we enter upon a new era of a po- 

 litical struggle that will become more passion- 

 ate and dangerous than any yet experienced a 

 struggle in which the laws of the Constitution 

 will be twisted and corrupted by sophistical 

 interpretations, if they are not openly set aside 

 a struggle in which one extreme will call 

 forth the other, and in which the energies of 

 our little country will be consumed in a de- 

 structive fratricidal war, or whether from this 

 moment, when the peril is greatest, a period 

 of useful and harmonious labor for the weal of 





