286 



DENMARK. 



royal decree was issued on Jan. 26, authorizing 

 the Government to raise taxes and defray cur- 

 rent expenses, although the charter forbids 

 taxes to be raised before the budget has been 

 passed. The Government did not professedly 

 abrogate the Constitution, but defeated its 

 main provisions by new interpretations, which 

 even the principal jurists of the Ministerial 

 party condemned. Parliament was immedi- 

 datelv prorogued, because the ministry desired 

 to keep up the pretense of parliamentary gov- 

 ernment by obtaining the indorsement of its 

 acts by the Landsthing. The provisional laws 

 restricting the sale of arms, suppressing volun- 

 teer military bodies, establishing a military con- 

 stabulary, restricting the freedom of speech, 

 and authorizing the Minister of Justice to in- 

 cur whatever expenditure he thinks fit for the 

 police, were ratified by that branch of the Leg- 

 islature. The ministers did not submit these 

 bills to the Folkething, but, exercising their 

 right of initiation, members of the majority 

 proposed them, and they were rejected in due 

 form. The budget was not submitted to the 

 Folkething, the finance minister defending his 

 action in bringing it forward in the Landsthing 

 with the argument that an identical budget 

 had been already acted upon by the lower 

 housa. The session was closed on Feb. 2. 

 The Folkething defeated the measures proposed 

 by the ministry, which rejected, on its part, 

 all those that were carried in the popular 

 chamber, where there were 83 members in 

 opposition and only 19 Ministerialists. Of 41 

 bills brought forward on both sides, only one 

 was passed. 



The main point of difference between the 

 ministry and the popular party is the question 

 of taxation, which is becoming more urgent 

 under the conditions of depression in agricult- 

 ure, trade, and manufactures that prevail, and 

 are aggravated by the bitterness of the consti- 

 tutional struggle. The ministry has on its side 

 only the great landlords, who aim at the res- 

 toration of the political powers and immuni- 

 ties that were taken from them in the reform 

 reign of Frederick VII, the bureaucracy, and 

 middle-class people of aristocratic sympathies, 

 while the popular party embraces almost all 

 the farmers, all the workingmen, and a large 

 part of the trading and manufacturing commu- 

 nity. The Government has received each year 

 a considerable surplus of taxes over the ex- 

 penditure. In 1884 '85 the aggregate revenue 

 amounted to 57,000,000 kroner, while the ex- 

 penditure was 48,000,000 kroner. The annual 

 receipts in excess of requirements have rolled 

 up the balance in the treasury from 23,000,000 

 kroner in 1877 to 59,000,000 kroner on March 

 31, 1885, while large sums have been applied 

 to paying off a part of the national debt, and 

 to railroads and other public works. The 

 p3ople demand a reduction of taxation, espe- 

 cially where it presses unequally on the poorer 

 classes. The ministry is willing to agree to a 

 revision of the tariff and the abolition of the 



navigation tax, which hampers foreign ship- 

 ping, but insists that the treasury must be 

 compensated by the imposition of new taxes 

 yielding an equal amount of revenue. The 

 customs tariff of 1863 taxes heavily the most 

 important and most necessary articles of con- 

 sumption ; also raw materials, such as coal, 

 timber, and metals. The duties were increased 

 by the war- tax of 1864, intended to cover the 

 losses of the war with Germany. These ex- 

 traordinary taxes have already yielded mor 

 than enough to compensate the treasury fc 

 the war expenditure. The finance minister, 

 Estrup, refuses to relinquish the unnecessary 

 , imposts, because the Government is likely to 

 require the surplus for increased military and 

 other expenditures. The project for national 

 defense works was rejected in 1876, and the 

 people sustained the action of the Folkething 

 by returning a majority of three fourths against 

 the Government. The Folkething has been 

 willing to vote considerable sums for military 

 purposes, but rejects the project for fortify- 

 ing Copenhagen on the land side as unreason- 

 able and incommensurate with the resources 

 of the country, if riot useless for practical de- 

 fensive purposes. The Government proceeded 

 this year to treat this repeatedly rejected 

 scheme as an urgent matter of current expen- 

 diture, which the Executive was authorized by 

 the Constitution to provide for. The King, on 

 April 2, approved the budget in the form in 

 which it had been voted by the Landsthing, 

 showing a surplus of 300,000 kroner, and au- 

 thorized extraordinary expenditures by the 

 war ministry of 3,000,000 kroner for forts and 

 500,000 kroner for guns, and by the naval min- 

 istry of 3,000,000 kroner, of which 1,200,000 

 kroner were for torpedo-boats and mines. 



Session of 1886-'87. The budget laid before 

 the Folkething at the opening of the new ses- 

 sion in October, 1886, placed the revenue at 

 53,391,000 kroner, and the expenditure at 62,- 

 500,000. The deficit, caused by extraordinary 

 expenditure on fortifications, the ministry pro- 

 posed to cover by drawing on the balance in 

 the treasury. The Minister of War, who in 

 1884 estimated the cost of fortifying Copenhs 

 gen at 33,000,000 kroner, now demanded 31,- 

 500,000 kroner for the works on the land-side, 

 and 14,666,000 kroner for the maritime forti- 

 fications, the expenditure of the first sum to 

 spread over five years, and of the second o\ 

 seven. The Folkething stood firm in its 

 fusal to accept the plan of the Government fc 

 the fortification of the capital, which, it was ex- 

 pected, would cost from 90,000,000 to 150,000,- 

 000 kroner, yet voted an exceptionally large 

 budget. The provisional financial law for th 

 current year was declared to be unconstitutional 

 and was rejected by 72 to 17 votes. The lateh 

 issued provisional laws regarding the respon- 

 sibility for newspaper articles and the re( 

 ganization of the criminal nnd police cour 

 were also refused the sanction of the Legish 

 tare. The strife between the ministry and 



