The influence of the revolution of 1848 also was felt in the foreign relations of Sweden. The German population of Holstein and Schleswig tried to sever their connections with Denmark in order to effect a union with Germany, Prussia taking upon herself to liberate said provinces. Denmark made various efforts to gain the active support of Sweden. The so-called “Scandinavism” was a good means to obtain this end. This movement, which aimed at the establishment of a closer union between the three Scandinavian countries, based upon the fact of the common origin of their inhabitants, had originated at the University of Copenhagen. The meetings of scientists and students, in 1842 and 1843, at Stockholm, had given growth to this movement, which was of a very high-strung nature, but, as far as the Danes were concerned, also of an egotistical motive. Charles XIV. had been averse to this “students’ policy,” but Oscar I. was sympathetically impressed by it. “Scandinavism” rose high in 1848, especially at the universities, and King Oscar sent a communication to the Prussian government to the effect that he was resolved to oppose any attack on theDanish isles. An army of 20,000 men was ordered to Scania to give weight to this statement. A smaller division of it was even for a time quartered in the island of Funen. The German troops which had invaded Jutland soon retired and hostilities ceased for some time. King Oscar effected an armistice of seven months in August, 1848. As a result of the war between Denmark and Germany during the next few years an agreement followed, according to which Holstein and Schleswig would for some time remain under Danish supremacy.
King Oscar had, from the commencement of his reign, tried to meet all demands for reform made by his Norwegian subjects, who were anxious to demonstrate to the world the perfect independence of their country. The king himself took the initiative steps to give Norway a national flag of its own, the two countries up to the reign of Oscar having had one common official flag. He also instituted the Norwegian knightly order of St. Olaf in resemblance to the older Swedish orders of Seraphim, Vasa, etc., and gave permission to place the name of Norway before that of Sweden in the Norwegian royal title. For these reasons public opinion in Sweden expected Norwegian concessions in regard to the Act of Union, which seemed in need of revision. A committee of men from both countries was appointed to make the revision, but the Norwegian members opposed all measures involving any change, expressing themselves in such emphatic terms that it was found best to leave the deliberations of the committee unpublished. In 1854 the Norwegian Storthing decided to abolish the office of a governor-general. King Oscar refused to sanction this law, but allowed the office to remain vacant during the rest of his reign.
Intemperance had grown to be an evil from which the Swedish people greatly suffered since the reign of Gustavus III., when alcohol began to be produced in great quantities by the common people. The king encouraged the temperance movement, which was very fruitful in results. In 1853 the Riksdag abolished the free and unrestrained production of alcohol, which was changed into a regular industry and placed under heavy taxation. From 1855 onward, the principles of free trade were adopted for commerce and trade through the influence of J. A. Gripenstedt, the minister of finance, and seemed to have beneficial results in every branch of industrial and commercial activity. The state revenues were greatly increased and the surplus spent in improvements of the widest scope. The means of interior communications were vastly improved. In 1853 the network of the state electric telegraph began to spread and now embraces every part of the country. The agitation for the construction of railways had long been an active one. The first one constructed was a private railway between Œrebro and Arboga. In 1854 the Riksdag decided on the construction of trunk lines in Southern Sweden, to be built and controlled by the state. The Riksdag of 1856 appropriated a sum of $5,000,000 for that purpose. The railways were rapidly and solidly built under the supervision of Baron Nils Ericsson, the highly talented brother of John Ericsson, the world-famous inventor of the propeller, the caloric engine, the steam hose and the “Monitor.”
The relations with Russia were not the best during the latter part of King Oscar’s reign. The Russian claims on the harbors at the bay of Varanger were repeated in 1847, and when deliberations for a settlement were opened, in 1851, Russia showed a tendency to take possession of thedesired places. In the conflict between Russia, on one hand, and Turkey, supported by England and France, on the other, Sweden sided with the latter, especially after Russia had failed to recognize an alliance of neutrality under arms formed by Sweden-Norway and Denmark. In 1855 Sweden entered an agreement with France, promising not to cede any territory to Russia in case of a conflict. In 1856 peace was made at Paris; the only favor won by Sweden was a pledge made by Russia not to fortify the archipelago of Aland.
King Oscar was a very hard worker and also fond of the pleasures of life. His health was injured through illness, in 1857, and he never recovered. The premature death of his second son, Prince Gustavus, a talented composer and highly popular, had a disastrous influence on him. King Oscar I. died July 8, 1859, after a long illness, beloved by the two nations who, during his reign, had enjoyed the happiest epoch of their history.
Romanticism in literature had an important second blossom during the reign of King Oscar I. and his successor. With the exception of Runeberg and Almquist, it offers no name of the very first rank. But Runeberg, the Homer of the North, does not belong to Sweden alone, and Almquist, the only great Romanticist, had made his appearance during the preceding epoch. Charles John Ludvig Almquist was a genius of great versatility and exceptional endowment. He wrote with equal force in all branches of literature; besides the poet, dramatist and prosaist, being a good philologist and well versed in a number of practical pursuits. He anticipated the ideas of which George Sand became a champion, and wrote charming peasant idyls long before Auerbach and Bjœrnson. His most important workis an ambiguous creation, conceived somewhat in the form of Boccaccio’s “Decamerone,” but much larger, and containing productions in every imaginable artistic form. It is calledTœrnrosens bok(The Book of the Wild Rose). Almquist has not, like Bellman and Tegnér, crystallized the Swedish national character in a lyrical form, but he remains, in spite of glaring defects, the most versatile and supremely gifted genius of Swedish literature.
Nybom, Bœttiger, Malmstrœm, Sætherberg and Strandberg were talented lyric poets of this epoch, Von Braun, Sturzen-Becker and Sehlstedt good humorists, while Bœrjesson, Blanche, Jolin, Dahlgren and Frans Hedberg wrote successfully for the stage. Swedish women were destined to win fame for themselves by bringing the novelistic form to a richer development; principal among whom were Frederica Bremer, Sophie von Knorring, Emilie Carlén and Sophie Schwartz, while the men Crusenstolpe, Sparre, Mellin, Ridderstad and Starbæck cultivated the field of historical fiction, for which Swedish history offers such a wealth of appropriate subjects.
Swedish composers of note were becoming numerous, although the field in which they chiefly excel is the rather limited one of lyric song, the most spontaneous medium of expression for the lyrico-rhetoric Swedish temperament. As the composer of “lieder” orvisor, Adolphus Lindblad, an intimate friend of Mendelssohn, occupies a revered place in the history of music. Close to him stand Crusell, Nordblom and Josephsson, while Hæffner, Otto Lindblad, one of the noblest composers in this line, Prince Gustavus and Vennerberg are famous principally for their part songs.
The cultivators of dramatic and orchestral compositionhave as yet been comparatively few. Chief among them is Bervald; further, Norman and Hallstrœm. In a later contemporary epoch, Hallén, Aulin, Sjœgren, Stenhammar have considerably brightened this aspect of cultural development. Gunnar Vennerberg occupies an honored place as a poet, humorist and composer in one. There seems to be a deeply rooted tendency in the Swedish national temperament to unite the various branches of artistic creation, which would stamp it as romantic in its very essence if there did not run a vein of stunningly realistic portrayals through the works of such composite nature. In the art of Bellman this tendency has found its highest exponent. Bellman selected for his subjects the life of the lower middle classes in the Swedish capital of his day. His Fredman sings of the experiences of himself and his friends. Vennerberg has chosen the student’s life at the University of Upsala as the subject of his duets between two students, “Gluntarne,” in which are mirrored as faithfully, and sometimes as artistically, as by Bellman the humorous and pathetic scenes which have fascinated the poet and composer.
Swedish song for the first time acquired universal fame through Jenny Lind, who has had many successors, but no peer as a dramatic singer. Contemporaneous with Jenny Lind were a number of highly talented histrionic artists, principal among whom were Lars Hjortsberg, Nils William Almlœf, Olof Ulric Torsslov, Emilie Hœgquist and Carl Georg Dahlquist. The Swedish stage has set a good example for the preservation of the highest standards of the language, and in this line exerted a great cultural influence.
Charles XV., the eldest son of Oscar I., succeeded his father, having for two years presided over the government during king Oscar’s last illness. King Charles was of gigantic stature, exceedingly handsome and of a manly and noble bearing. There dwelt a fiery soul within him, conscious of its power, longing for heroic deeds and in sympathy with all that was noble in life and art. The king possessed an abundance of youthful energy and vivacity. He was a passionate hunter and a gay companion, who surrounded himself with men equally boisterous and gay. He was fond of jokes and merry pastimes, and took no pains to hide his weaknesses, which were of a convivial nature. In his social intercourse the king was exceptionally open and frank, treating everybody alike in a good-natured, hearty manner, winning the whole heart of his people. He understood better than any king since Charles XI. how to put himself in cordial relation with the masses of the people. But fond of playing practical jokes on high and low, he did not like to receive in the same measure. Charles XV. was devoted to the pursuits of art. Especially in his youth, he wrote poetry and distinguished himself as a landscape painter through his love for typical Swedish sceneries. Sweden did not at first knowwhat to expect of her new ruler, and no one was able to predict the course of his policy. There were fears that his youthfulness and his fiery southern temperament might lead him to feel satisfied with the exterior of things or that he might give way to the impulses of the moment. These fears soon proved to be without foundation. The king had chosen as his maxim “Land shall with law be built,” from the old provincial law of Upland, and he remained, with very rare exceptions, true to the constitutional spirit of these words. He had the good fortune to find highly capable advisers, in whose hands he placed the details of the administration, and, in contrast to his father, was satisfied to give his attention exclusively to matters of a more general importance. He gave his unreserved support to his cabinet, occupying a position above all party interests. Charles XV. often sacrificed, sometimes only after considerable internal struggle, his own personal sympathies and inclinations at the request of the advisers when he saw that the welfare of his country and his own royal dignity demanded such a sacrifice. On account of this, his true constitutional spirit, he deserved as a ruler the blind adoration of his people. His summer residence, the castle of Ulricsdal, in the neighborhood of Stockholm, he changed into an artistic abode, with choice collections in various lines. Charles XV. had, in 1850, married Princess Louise of the Netherlands, of the royal house of Orange. Their daughter, Louise, was married to the crown prince of Denmark, and is still in life, while King Charles had to suffer the premature losses of his only son and of his consort.
The cabinet which surrounded Charles XV. was one of the strongest bodies of its kind that ever controlled the government of Sweden. During his regency, Crown PrinceCharles appointed Baron Louis de Geer minister of justice and Ludvig Manderstrœm minister of foreign affairs. These men continued their duties during the reign of Charles XV., while Gripenstedt, as minister of finance, followed up his beneficent activity for the emancipation and development of the national industries. The historian, Frederic Ferdinand Carlson, had been the teacher of King Charles and had successfully continued the monumental work of Swedish history, left unfinished by Geijer. Carlson occupied, during the greater part of the reign of Charles XV., the position of minister of ecclesiastics (church and education), in which capacity he did great work for the improvement of educational affairs. The high schools and colleges were reorganized through new regulations of 1859, being the work of Carlson before his appointment to the cabinet. Carlson also improved the public, or common, schools. King Charles was a warm friend of public instruction. In one of his speeches from the throne he said: “This is my ambition that a true and living culture shall penetrate our people and with its blessings reach the humblest of its cottages.”
The relations between Sweden and Norway, during the first few years of the reign of Charles XV., were strained. The Norwegian Storthing once more voted the abolition of the office of a governor-general. It was thought that the king, who earlier, as viceroy of Norway, had spoken in a spirit of acquiescence upon this question, would sanction the vote of the Storthing. But in Sweden great indignation was felt. It was known and understood that the Act of Union contained nothing in regard to the office in question, but was created by a stipulation in the constitution of Norway which admitted the possibility of its being filled by a Swede.The Norwegian view was that the Storthing had exclusive right to decide the question, while the Swedish view was that it was a question concerning the Union and to be decided on by the diets of the two countries. Practically the Swedes were right; theoretically, and from a purely patriotic standpoint, which considered necessary the development of a perfect national independence even at the expense of the Union, the Norwegians were right. Ankarsverd, well known since the days of Charles XIV., made a motion, at the Swedish Riksdag of 1859, for the revision of the Act of Union on the basis of the treaty of Kiel, which motion in Norway was accepted as an insult. V. F. Dalman made a motion that the Estates should ask the king not to render a decision in the question of a Norwegian governor-general before the Riksdag had had an opportunity to look into the international aspect of the question. Great was the commotion caused by this issue, both in the diets and the press of the two countries. Swedish pamphlets were circulated which accepted the possibility of a dissolution of the Union. But in Norway, where the security of a union with Sweden had become apparent, especially during the conflict with Russia, such utterances were repudiated. Both of the motions in question were passed by the four Estates of the Riksdag, but put in such a shape that a request to have a revision of the Act of Union made was sent up to the king, with the demand for a royal proposition on that issue. The king was then asked to consider the question of a Norwegian governor-general in connection with that revision. As there was a difference of opinion also in the cabinets of the two countries, the final decision rested with the king alone. The sagacity and discernment of which King Charles gave evidence saved the situation and is worthy of praise. Hedeclared in the Norwegian cabinet that he could not sanction the abolition of the office of a governor-general. Shortly afterward, he gave in the Swedish cabinet as his opinion the advisability of postponing, for the time being, all deliberations of a revision of the Act of Union. By doing so, the king quieted the high feelings in both countries, and peace returned. It had become apparent to both Swedes and Norwegians that the Union was the result of great political foresight because it was preserved through the increasing feeling of faith and of the necessity of mutual protection. That great obscurity existed in regard to the affairs regulating the Union had also become evident.
The reforms and improvements which were effected during the reign of Charles XV. were highly important. New criminal and maritime codes were made at the Riksdag of 1862, and sanctioned by the government. Through the new regulations passed in the same year the foundations for increased municipal home rule were laid. Such home rule was as old as the country itself, but, in the same degree as the state organization, had attained a higher development, and the centralization of the administration was realized; it had weakened and was in peril of being entirely lost. Now the time was come for the powers of state to give municipal home rule new strength, adapting its old forms and creating new ones, in accordance with modern requirements. Laws were made which gave the towns the right to elect members to local assemblies (stadsfullmœgtige), with authority to act in behalf of their communities. Similar institutions (kommunalstæmmor) were arranged for the country communities.Landstingwere instituted in every governmental district, orlæn, at which representatives, elected by the people, were to take action on the public affairs of the district, especially on such that pertained to sanitary conditions, communications, etc. The conditions for suffrage and elective franchise in municipal affairs were based on personal income. The old class distinctions were thus disregarded and a return made to the still older democratic institutions of the ancient Teutonic communities, in which every free man is entitled to his word and vote in public affairs. But those only are considered “free” who by their work can gain enough to pay their taxes in return for the privileges of a citizen. The church got a representation of its own in the clerical assembly (kyrkomœtet), which meets every fifth year and consists of equal numbers of ministers and laymen.
The government in the municipal reforms found a basis for the reorganization of the Riksdag. The royal proposition for a new parliamentary representation, placed before the Estates in 1862, was built upon the municipal suffrage and the Landstings or district assemblies, the latter being authorized to elect the members of the senate, or First Chamber. The old system of representation corresponded as little with the new municipal home rule as with the general tendencies in politics and social life. The nobility had lost its old importance. It was no longer advisable for the clergy to take a leading part in political affairs. A new industrial class of wealth and prominence had formed and demanded a representation in the burgher class. The peasants had ever since 1809 been carrying on their agitation for a reduction of taxes and abolition of the class privileges. They had met with an overwhelming opposition, which would fall with the old system of representation. A parliamentary reform had been fervently discussed ever since 1840. The municipal home rule reforms of 1862 hadbrought the question closer to a solution. The burghers and peasants at the Riksdag of 1860 petitioned the government to present a royal proposition for the reorganization of the Diet. Baron Louis de Geer, the minister of justice, was the author of this proposition, which was presented in 1862 and placed on the table until the next Riksdag. The great question was acted upon at the Riksdag of 1865. There was a great deal of commotion on account of the opposition which was expected from the nobility and clergy. The discussions in the periodical press and in pamphlet form were lively. The country population preserved its peaceful and sensible demeanor, but the excitement in the towns was considerable and increased as the decision drew nearer. The majority of towns and several rural communities in their close proximity sent deputations to Stockholm, who tendered their best wishes to the able minister of justice for the success of his proposition. The commotion in Stockholm was so great that troops were ordered ready in case of an emergency. The 4th of December the proposition was voted on by the burghers and peasants. At the question of the speaker, whether they were willing to accept the royal proposition, the peasants rose to their feet in a body and gave their answer with one laconic yea. A few of the burghers spoke against the proposition, but it was carried also in their Estate, and by an overwhelming majority. Long and heated discussions took place among the nobility and clergy. The clergymen were generally opposed to the parliamentary reform, but feared to be found remaining as the only opponents in the storm of disapproval which would follow. For this reason they postponed their decision until the nobility had taken action upon the proposition.
There rested a spirit of real grandeur over the deliberations at the Riddarhus upon this occasion, when the question of a voluntary surrender of the aristocratic privileges was to be decided. The Swedish nobility had its class instincts and prejudices, but very rarely it had been found lacking in men of the loftiest patriotism and highest attainments, ever ready to take the lead in the defence of the independence of their country or to follow up faithfully the ambitions of their great rulers. Arrangements had been made to allow noblemen from distant parts and of very limited means to be present, if not during the time of the discussions, which lasted four days, at least at the casting of the vote. Never in the memorable history of the knightly chapterhouse had more eloquent language or loftier thoughts been heard than upon this occasion. Both supporters and opponents of the royal proposition spoke with great sagacity and discernment. The former spoke of the inadvisability of a representation by Estates and by hereditary privileges, and of the dangers of a further postponement of the needed reform. The latter nicely scrutinized the royal proposition, which was considered to give too great influence to the peasants, to weaken the executive power and to depend upon municipal reforms as yet untried. They further considered the upper house, or First Chamber, too homogeneous with the Second to be able to exert the conservative or retaining power expected from it. The members of the cabinet all spoke with fervor and persuasive power in favor of the royal proposition, especially De Geer, Gripenstedt and Carlson. The outcome was that the royal proposition was accepted by a vote of 361 yeas against 294 nays. The nobility as a class thus left the political arena voluntarily and with honor. Now the turn was come to the clergy, who unanimously accepted the royalproposition without further discussion. The result was accepted with outbursts of enthusiasm from all over the country, but especially from the towns. The four Estates adjourned June 22, 1866, forever, and the law of the new system of parliamentary representation was sanctioned the same date.
The royal proposition, which became the law of a new Diet, is based upon the principle of general elections. The Riksdag meets at the commencement of every year. It is divided into two houses or Chambers. The members of the First Chamber, or upper house, are elected for a term of nine years, partly by the Landstings, or district assemblies, partly by the assemblies of towns which do not take part in a Landsting. Elective to the First Chamber are those who have a yearly income of at least $1,000 from some business or enterprise, or as the interest on a capital of their own. These members, or senators, must be at least thirty-five years of age; they do not enjoy any compensation. The members of the Second Chamber, or lower house, are elected by every judicial district in the country which has no more than 40,000 inhabitants and by every 10,000 inhabitants of a town. Towns which have a population of less than 10,000 inhabitants are joined into election districts of from 6,000 to 12,000 inhabitants. Elective to the Second Chamber are those who pay taxes on an income of at least $200 a year and who are twenty-five years of age. These members are compensated for the time spent at the Riksdag. The ordinary Riksdag, which meets every year, lasts for a period of at least four months. The extraordinary Riksdag is called by the king whenever he finds it necessary. The members of the cabinet are elective as members of the Riksdag, and should, during all sessions, be presentat the deliberations of the Chambers. The standing committees remain the same as during the time of the old system. Special and temporary committees are appointed when considered necessary. When the two Chambers end in a conflicting vote upon one and the same subject, the committee which prepared it for discussion should try to obtain a satisfactory solution. If such fails, the question is dropped for that year. The expenses of state, the state appropriations and the management of the national bank, when involved, form exceptions to this rule and are voted upon by both Chambers together, the majority of votes from both making the decision.
A new era in Swedish history opens up with the acceptance of the parliamentary reform. The constitution itself had suffered no change, except in points of contact with the new rules of the Riksdag. But the powers of state no longer held to each other the same position as of yore. The government hitherto had, in the very division into four Estates, a support against powerful class and party interests. An equally solid support was not to be expected from a Riksdag of only two Chambers, which in questions of state appropriations is practically one. For this reason many would have preferred the establishment of a system which, instead of abolishing the mediæval arrangement of four Estates, would have added as many classes as there are really extant in the modern state, to gain the desired equilibrium through a manifold and dynamically operating representation. As things shaped themselves after the two Chamber system, the government ought more than ever to have a conservative, retaining power in order to preserve the proper balance. But such was not the case, for the Riksdag had been placed in a position to watch and controlthe executive power much closer than before, thanks to its authority to fix for each year the appropriations and expenditures of the state. The stipulation that the members of the cabinet are to take part in the deliberations of the Chambers gives another pillar of strength to the Riksdag. If the ministers of state are to exert any influence upon the decisions of the Riksdag, it is requisite to have its full confidence. The king is forced to select for his cabinet such members as are supposed to have an influence with the representatives of the people. The influence of the Riksdag has been steadily increasing ever since 1867.
While the issue of a parliamentary reform occupied the attention of all public-spirited men, the interest in the political situation of Europe was hardly less intense. The sympathy with the unhappy Poles was almost feverish. In 1863 two motions were made at the Riksdag to petition the government to take an active part in the restoration of the kingdom of Poland, by means of diplomatic intervention. The position of the government was a difficult one. The complications between Denmark and Germany had recommenced, and it was important to stand in good relations to Russia. The Swedish public did everything to make these relations precarious, by demonstrations of various kinds in favor of Poland, warlike newspaper articles and subscriptions of money to the leaders of the revolt. Thanks to the sagacity and tactful demeanor of Manderstrœm and the common sense of the Riksdag the motions in question were defeated and a dangerous conflict avoided. Complications of a more serious nature arose on account of the reopened conflict between Denmark and Germany. The Danish government had failed in its efforts to make a satisfactory arrangement in the relations between the crown and theduchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The Germans repeatedly mixed themselves up in the interior affairs of Denmark, and the Danes themselves were divided into several parties. King Frederic VII. at last concluded to give up the idea of gathering in the duchies as integral parts of the kingdom, satisfied to sacrifice the ultimate connection of Holstein and Lauenburg with the crown, but resolved to connect the originally Danish Schleswig with Denmark. The purely German parts were, through the so-called “March Patent” of 1863, separated from the rest of the monarchy, while Schleswig was reunited with it, according to the constitution. This policy was approved by the Scandinavian party in Sweden and Norway, supported by Swedish diplomacy, and, in the first place, by Charles XV. himself. King Charles was inspired by general sympathy with the Scandinavian movement and by personal friendship for Frederic VII. to follow up the Scandinavian policy of his father. The two Scandinavian monarchs met twice during the summer of 1863 and influenced the Swedish-Norwegian and Danish cabinets to draw the outline of a treaty of defence on the basis of the river Eider as the Danish boundary to the south. The Danish government made the proposition for a new constitution according to which Schleswig was to be united to Denmark. This was contrary to the promise made by King Frederic to the German powers in 1852. The proposition for a new constitution was placed before the Danish Diet and accepted. Two days later, November 15, 1863, King Frederic suddenly died, before he had sanctioned the new law. This was a severe blow. The popular king left his beloved people in a most inopportune moment, fraught with peril and disastrous mistakes. The people of Schleswig and Holstein renewed an old contention in regard to the right of succession. Thenew Danish king, Christian IX., gave in to the pressure brought to bear on him by his cabinet and the inhabitants of Copenhagen. He signed the new constitution, which gave to the German powers a valid excuse to interfere. The Prussian and Austrian troops crossed the river Eider to make good the agreements of 1852.
The Swedish-Norwegian government was placed in an embarrassing position. The alliance of defence that was planned was to a great extent based upon the relations of personal friendship between Charles XV. and Frederic VII. Sweden was not legally pledged to shield Denmark as a consequence of the acceptance of the new constitution. But Sweden had taken a conspicuous part in the deliberations, for which reason a change of policy could not be made without considerable difficulty. The liberal organs of the Swedish press, headed by “Aftonbladet,” whose editor was August Sohlman, did everything in their power to make such a change an impossibility. But Sweden was not prepared to make war on two of the great powers of Europe, especially as no other power was willing to join in an alliance in behalf of Denmark. The change must be made; and was effected, principally because of the persuasive arguments and resolute demeanor of Gripenstedt. King Charles resolved to take the painful measures of a retreat. The standpoint of his government he gave to the Riksdag in the following words: “It cannot be expected from us that we should place our sword on the scale of justice without considering if the object can be attained with the resources at our command.” It was a supreme sacrifice that Charles XV. made when, for the safety of his countries, he was forced to draw back the hand of support and comradeship which he had offered a brother in distress. The noble-hearted king, in one of his poems, has given a touching expression of the sorrow he felt in being unable to assist Denmark in her hour of peril. King Charles might, with proper resources at his command, have proved a formidable enemy. He had given evidence of possessing all the qualities requisite for the make-up of a great general, without doubt an inheritance from his two grandfathers, Prince Bernadotte and Eugene Beauharnais. A few hundred Swedish and Norwegian volunteers took an honorable part in the Danish war, which was the only practical result of the Scandinavian policy. The Swedish press was violent in its attacks upon the government for its change of policy. In March, 1864, the mob of Stockholm assailed the residences of Manderstrœm, Gripenstedt and other cabinet members, breaking the windows with stones.
Poor Denmark was left alone. Napoleon III. made the mistake of not attempting to defeat Prussia before she had reached her climax of strength. He was tied up with his Mexican adventure and unwilling to help Denmark. Charles XV. could not endure to see Denmark thus deserted. Privately he offered Christian IX. an alliance which stipulated that the three Scandinavian kingdoms should be joined into a union with one common foreign policy and common defence. Charles was also willing to make the succession one, if necessary. This alliance was to embrace only such parts of Denmark which were not to enter the German union. Sweden-Norway would do their utmost to prohibit a separation between Denmark and Schleswig. Denmark refused to accept this offer. Her leading statesman, Monrad, held stubbornly to the idea of an undivided Danish monarchy. For this reason, Denmark was for a second time abandoned to fight out alone her unevenbattle. It ended in the loss of Holstein, Lauenburg and the greater part of Schleswig, through the treaty of Vienna, October 30, 1864. In Denmark a hard feeling against the Swedes and Norwegians sprang up as a consequence of the disastrous war fought without allies; and the Scandinavian policy and enthusiasm had received a blow from which they have never fully recovered. Charles XV. did all in his power to revive them. He had the pleasure of uniting the efforts of Sweden, Norway and Denmark in a peaceful work of great significance, the first Scandinavian Exposition of Industry and Art, which was opened at Stockholm in June, 1866. The consequence was a perfect Norwegian conquest of Sweden, in a cultured sense. The painters Tidemand and Gude captured the prizes. The composers Kierulf and Nordraak took the lead in song and music. Ibsen and Bjornson became the craze in literature. The literary contact with Norway was begun in 1861, when Lorenz Dietriechson was appointed a docent at the University of Upsala, and for the first time made the contemporary Norwegian and Danish poets acquainted in Sweden. What Sweden received from Norway was a quaint, late-born Romanticism of a strong national flavor. When this Romanticism was changed into stern Realism its influence upon Swedish culture, especially her literature, was only increased, Swedish literature receiving strong realistic impulses from the neighboring Scandinavian countries. The Norwegian influence ceased, when the Swedes at last became aware that there was in it a deeply pessimistic trait, akin to the stern Norwegian and Scotch Christianity, which is incompatible with the Swedish national temperament, slightly inclined to melancholy, but of a robust and irrepressible desire to live and enjoy.
Charles XV. followed up his practical Scandinavian policy by marrying his only daughter Louise to Crown Prince Frederic of Denmark. King Charles was as unsuccessful in his noble efforts to unite more closely his two kingdoms as in his foreign policy. The king allowed some time to pass in order to let the ill-feeling, caused by the conflict of 1859 and 1860, die out. In February, 1865, he considered that the moment had arrived to institute the review of the Act of Union. He appointed a committee of Swedes and Norwegians to prepare the proposition of a new Act of Union, on the basis of perfect equality and right to decide separately all matters, except such pertaining to the Union. The committee performed the work, but their proposition was defeated at the Norwegian Storthing of 1871, at the instigation of John Sverdrup and K. Motzfeldt. The Swedish Riksdag for this reason also failed to accept it. At the close of the Riksdag, King Charles made the following utterance in regard to the defeated proposition: “What has now failed to attain success shall perhaps win out without difficulty when the two nations once have learned to place confidence in each other, as the result of a more intimate intercourse.” He saw with great satisfaction the completion of a railway which forever unites the Swedish and the Norwegian capitals with ties of steel.
The administration of Charles XV. persevered in its liberal policy concerning questions of economy and jurisprudence. This was particularly noticeable in commercial matters. The idea of free trade had won ascendency in Europe. Napoleon III. had entered a treaty of commerce with England, in strict opposition to the protective system. Other nations were one by one admitted into the free-trade system by means of new treaties. Sweden made a treatyof commerce and navigation in 1865. This step was severely criticised by the Riksdag of 1865-1866, both from a constitutional and financial point of view. Gripenstedt was accused of leading the way over demolished industries, but he defended his position with great eloquence. The treaty was ratified in spite of the powerful opposition in the Riksdag. The press condemned both the treaty and the government in the most violent language.
The first Riksdag of the new parliamentary system met January 19, 1867. The “Landstings” had sent to the First Chamber the most prominent men of the country. It was a truly representative gathering, a house of peers elected by the people. Lagerbielke, the landtmarshal of the preceding Riksdag, was appointed speaker. The Second Chamber counted a larger number of peasants as representatives than of any other class. Anton Nicolaus Sundberg, then bishop of Carlstad, now archbishop of Sweden, was made speaker of the Second Chamber. The power of the peasants made itself felt at once. There was formed a strong and influential party, thelandtmanna, or countrymen’s party, consisting of small landowners. The peasants constituted the majority, but the party also counted many titled and untitled country gentlemen in interests united with them. The founder of the party was Count Arvid Rutger Posse, later minister of state. Emil Key and the peasants Charles Ifvarsson and Liss Olof Larsson were among the leaders of the party. The policy of the Landtmanna party demanded simplification of the administration, economy in the matter of appropriations and a solution of the questions of the defence and taxation in harmony with the interests of the owners of the soil. The party followed up its policy with stern consistency from Riksdag to Riksdag, until in perfect control of the whole government. The opposition consisted of “the Intelligence” or intellectual party, which, without a solid constitution or a fixed policy, has in vain fought the spreading influence and power of the Landtmanna party. The latter has gone almost too far in its endeavors for economical reform, but has also given evidence of appreciation of the material needs of a cultural development, appropriating large sums for the benefit of science and education.
The army question was the most important issue of Swedish politics. The events of 1866 had made it evident that a strengthening of the defences was necessary. King Charles was anxious to have the question solved in a satisfactory manner, finding therein the only reliable safeguard for the future independence of Sweden. It was apparent that any attempts to settle the question in accordance with the system adopted by Charles XI. would be devoid of result. It was based upon direct taxation of the soil and must be opposed by the strong majority of small landowners of the Landtmanna party. A compromise policy was for this reason begun in 1867, the question of an abolition of the land tax being connected with the army question, although the two ought to have had no connection. The question was started with promises of a reduction or exemption of the duties of the old army system as compensation for the acceptance of a new arrangement for the country’s defence. The government made an army proposition to the Riksdag of 1869, promising several reductions to the landowners who furnished soldiers according to the old system (indelningsverket). The proposition was prepared by a committee, of which the new minister of war, Gustavus Rudolph Abelin, was the chairman. It was basedupon the preservation of the old system for the furnishing of the body force of officers and men. The larger force was to be provided for through militia. The militia was to be drilled in the neighborhood of their various homes during sixty days of the year. The proposition was not accepted. The militia compulsory service, as the duty of every citizen for the defence of his country, had nothing to do with the regular army as provided by the stipulations of the old system. But the majority of the Second Chamber confused the two and refused to allow the establishment of the former on a wider basis, because the offers made to reduce the burdens of the old system did not appear to them liberal enough. In 1871 another proposition was made by Abelin to the Riksdag. It was similar to the first one, and its cause was eloquently pleaded by Abelin, Axel Gustavus Adlercreutz, minister of justice, Peter Axel Bergstrœm, minister of civil service, and Gunnar Vennerberg, minister of ecclesiastics. They warned against the mistake of attaching impossible conditions to the acceptance of the proposition. The proposition for an extended militia service was accepted by both Chambers. But when the Second Chamber raised, as a condition for its acceptance, the suspension, for fifteen years, of the old system which provided for the regular army, the government found it impossible to grant this, and the proposition was dropped.
King Charles was grieved and vexed with the fate of the army bills. The Franco Prussian war made it, in his opinion, of added importance to Sweden to have her defences remodelled. He called an extraordinary session of the Riksdag, in the autumn of 1871, when Abelin brought out a third proposition. It was chiefly of the same contents as the preceding ones. But a remarkable change in thepublic opinion had now taken place, as to the advisability of retaining the old system. Men who looked upon the question more from a military than an economic point of view entertained doubts as to the practical value of the old regular army as the body force of a compulsory militia. Military officers commenced to attack the old system as the basis of a new army. The Landtmanna party persevered in the request for an abolition of the old system, and this killed the army bill at the extraordinary Riksdag.
Together with the request for an abolition of the old army system, demands for redemption from other burdens placed upon the owners of the soil made themselves heard. The land-tax was the principal one of these burdens and caused as much difference of opinion as the army system. The Landtmanna party considered the land-tax to be of the same nature originally as other taxes, which ought to be more evenly distributed and shared by all classes in the same proportion. The Intelligence party was of the opinion that the land-tax in the course of time had come to be rents or mortgages which always were taken into consideration at the exchange of property, as reducing the stock value of the property in question. To free a present generation from the payment of land-tax, was in the eyes of the opposition, an injustice to the other classes whose taxes thereby were to be increased. The Landtmanna party had, in 1869, commenced an agitation for the reduction of the land-tax for shorter periods and on a small scale at first, but with increasing demands at every new Riksdag.
The government, whose members had been the champions of parliamentary reform, was soon disregarded by the triumphant party, while its old opponents never forgot it. The earlier advisers of the king retired one by one whenthey saw their influence in the Riksdag vanish. King Charles himself took the defeat of the army bills deep at heart. His health commenced to fail in 1871, and when his faithful consort died, in the same year, having exposed her own health in her attempts to improve the condition of the king, the latter grew worse. After a trip abroad for his health, King Charles XV. died at Malmœ, September 18, 1872, deeply mourned by the two nations. In the following year his youngest brother Nicolaus August, duke of Dalecarlia, died, leaving only two of the children of Oscar I., Oscar Frederic, duke of East Gothland, and Princess Eugenie. The history of Charles XV. carries the principal traits of his character. His sweeping reforms in social, political and economical matters, and his great plans for the future, even if sometimes immature, or high-strung, were always characterized by loftiness of purpose. A typical Swede both in his merits and his faults, this was the secret of the immense popularity of King Charles, which always followed him, although he never sought it.
The philosopher Christian Jacob Bostrœm is the most popular of Swedish thinkers and the first who founded a national system and school of philosophy, idealistic and rational, and in strict opposition to the system of Hegel. Bostrœm was born in Pitea, in 1797, was the teacher of the sons of Oscar I., and succeeded the able philosopher Samuel Grubbe, a talented follower of Hœijer, as professor of philosophy at the University of Upsala. Bostrœm was a highly fascinating and suggestive teacher, while he neglected his literary production, which is neither exhaustive nor quite representative of his philosophy. He exerted a considerable influence by his outline of a philosophical state, which pleased the conservatives, while a much more widespreadand lasting impression was produced by his criticism of the doctrines of a hell and a devil. A whole literature sprang into life, discussing vehemently the existence or non-existence of the fiend. To this literature and the works and writings of Bostrœm is to be credited the spirit of religious tolerance which characterized life and literature during the reign of Charles XV. It fostered in the cultured few a leaning toward Unitarianism or Theosophy, while it gave rise to a shallow materialism and religious indifference in the less cultured classes and individuals.
The artistic, literary and musical life bore a decided resemblance to the intellectually interested but dilettantic king. Charles XV. was surrounded by a great number of painters who, although possessing a good deal of talent, succeeded only in the smaller field of genre painting. Remarkable exceptions are J. F. Hœckert, Marcus Larsson and C. H. L. D’Uncker, who possessed sterling genius and acquired great fame. Several promising painters, like George von Rosen, developed later the full scope of their power. The sculptor J. P. Molin was highly talented, a worthy follower of B. E. Fogelberg, who had enriched Swedish art with a number of highly important sculptures.
In the world of letters, the spirit of dilettantism was more strongly felt than in art, Swedish literature, after its several glorious epochs, experiencing one of its most stagnant periods. A veritable giant among pygmies was Victor Rydberg, whose remarkable novel, “The Last Athenian,” appeared in 1859, but whose principal productivity as a poet and scientist belongs to a later period. So do, to a great extent, the best works of the poets Eduard Beckstrœm, also an able dramatist, and Count Carl Snoilsky. Zacharias Topelius, the Walter Scott and Hans Christian Andersenof Finland, must be mentioned here. Writing in the Swedish language, and for his principal work using subjects of Swedish history, he was as highly beloved in Sweden as in Finland. His excellent series of historical novels, called “The Surgeon’s Stories,” have been translated into several languages. His juvenile stories are not characterized by the same degree of inventive power as are the tales by Andersen, but Topelius had the latter’s ability of placing himself in intimate contact with the pure minds of all ages.
In the most national of Swedish cultural elements, the song, the epoch of dilettantism found its most beautiful and lasting expressions. The quartet and chorus singing at the universities of Upsala and Lund was cultivated to the highest standards of excellence and had a splendid repertory in the songs of Otto Lindblad, Vennerberg, Prince Gustavus, Josephsson, Crusell, Cronhamn, etc. The Upsala students caused a great sensation by their singing at the Paris Exposition of 1867, and have repeated their successes at the Paris Exposition of 1878, and in Berlin in 1898. Swedish quartets of men’s and women’s voices have travelled all over the world and made a lasting fame for this minor but bewitching branch of musical art. As dramatic singers of the first rank, Louise Michaëli and Christine Nilsson have been the worthy successors of Jenny Lind. To this period, as well as to the next, belongs Elisa Hvasser, the greatest and most versatile actress Sweden has ever had. This artist was equally at home in the farce and melodrama, but excelled in the tragic parts of the Shakespeare, Schiller, and Ibsen repertory. Indispensable in their positions at the Royal Theatre of Stockholm, Michaëli, the songstress, and Hvasser, the tragedienne, did not travel, thereby losing the fame a world would have been only too glad to give them.
Oscar II. ascended the throne at a moment when universal peace was restored after the great conflict between France and Germany, and when an age of commercial prosperity for Sweden seemed to have begun. King Oscar had received the same superior education as his older brothers, is as brilliantly gifted as they were and of a more scholarly mind. As a writer on scientific subjects, a poet and an orator, Oscar II. had distinguished himself before his succession to the throne. The new king offered the best of securities for a sound administration in his thorough and versatile knowledge, wide experience in public affairs, and rich and harmonious endowment. Oscar II. still did not find it easy to gain the love and admiration of the Swedish people, of which he is so eminently worthy. He was the successor of one of the most popular of rulers that the country ever saw, but King Oscar has lived to see his own popularity almost outrival that of his predecessor. King Oscar is, at seventy, a handsome, spirited gentleman, with that dignity which age, rare attainments, high intelligence and a noble soul grant their common possessor. This the most learned and popular monarch of Europe is of a tall, commanding figure, six feetthree inches in height, of a handsome, expressive face, with cheeks of a ruddy color and mild blue eyes.
Oscar II. has shown great discernment in his arrangement of dynastic matters. Himself married to the fervently religious Princess Sophie of Nassau, the king has married his oldest son, Crown Prince Gustavus Adolphus, to Princess Victoria of Bade, a granddaughter of Emperor William I. of Germany, and a great-granddaughter of Gustavus IV. of Sweden. His third son, Prince Charles, duke of West Gothland, is married to Princess Ingeborg of Denmark, a granddaughter of Charles XV. of Sweden. These unions are well calculated to accentuate the increasing political, commercial and cultural intimacy with Germany, the Scandinavian policy of his predecessor and the desire of King Oscar to see the descendants of the old royal line of Sweden as heirs to the crown. In giving his consent to the marriage of his second son, Prince Oscar (Bernadotte), to Lady Ebba Munck, of the Swedish nobility, King Oscar has given evidence of the fact that he is not a match-maker regardless of the feelings of the parties involved. Prince Oscar, formerly Duke of Gothland, upon renouncing his share of inheritance to the two thrones, was allowed to marry the choice of his heart. King Oscar has tried to heal the wounds of the past by opening the vaults of the church of Riddarholm to the sarcophagi of Gustavus IV. and his son, and by giving Queen Carola of Saxony, the only living granddaughter of the former, repeated proofs of esteem and considerate distinction.
King Oscar with his crowns had received as an inheritance two important problems to be solved—the reorganization of the Swedish army and the settlement of the difficulties in the relations between the two states of the Union.The latter has not yet found a satisfactory solution, although the king has devoted to it his most strenuous attention and the best of his efforts, in honest application to his royal motto: “The Weal of the Brother Nations.”
The reorganization of the Swedish army was not effected until after twenty years of parliamentary struggle. The road of a compromise policy which was opened in 1867 was followed up at the Riksdag of 1873, in all the long chain of years royal army bills being repeatedly rejected. In 1885 the government and Riksdag agreed on a remission of thirty per cent of the military taxes of landowners in exchange for new regulations for the militia compulsory service. In 1887 the Riksdag sanctioned the total abolition of the “indelta,” or cantoned troops, as far as the navy was concerned, which was the first step toward the reorganization of the navy, and the same year the militia law of 1885 went into effect.
The old Landtmanna, or agrarian party, in 1888 gave place to a new protectionistic party. A contested election of twenty-two members from Stockholm gave a sudden majority to the protectionists, O. R. Themptander, the able minister of state, resigning. The army bill did not fare well at first. In spite of the fact that the Landtmanna party was brushed aside, the old enemies of an army reform, the landowners, nobles and peasants alike, still being strong enough to successfully oppose it. The Riksdag of 1888 passed a grain tariff, which went into effect February 14th of the same year, enforcing several other points of a protective tariff system.
King Oscar called an extraordinary, or special, session of the Riksdag, October 18, 1892, when royal propositions were offered and accepted. The land-tax was abolished anda new army bill passed. According to the stipulations of the latter, thebeværingstid, or period of liability for every citizen to bear arms, was extended to embrace twenty years instead of twelve, viz., eight years in the first ban of thelandtværn, or militia, four years in the second ban, and eight years in thelandstorm, or final levy. The first ban of militia is in time of war to form an integral part of the first fighting line, the second ban forming a reserve for the first fighting line. The final levy is to be called out for garrison duty exclusively, and for the defence of the country against foreign invasion. Six military districts have been established, five distributed along the entire coast of Sweden, the sixth inland in the western provinces to be a reserve ready to be used at the point and moment most needed. The reorganized army in active service is composed ofværfvade, or enlisted troops, andindelta, or cantoned troops, the expenses also of the latter being paid by the government. The royal guards, chasseurs, hussars, artillery, and engineers are enlisted for two years up to eight. The militia troops are distributed among both the enlisted and the cantoned troops, the length of service with the colors being ninety days in time of peace. The infantry in which all the cantoned troops serve consist of twenty-six regiments and two battalions. The line is armed with Remingtons of 8.8 millimetres calibre. There are eight regiments of cavalry and six regiments and six batteries of field artillery, forty batteries in all, with 240 cannon. The effective of the active army, in 1896, was 1,953 officers, 571 employees, 1,779 non-commissioned officers, 1,641 musicians and 38,802 men, with 6,852 horses. The war effective is 272,994 men, besides 180,000 in thelandstorm. The chief fortifications of Sweden are Carlscrona, on the southcoast; two fortresses outside of Stockholm, viz., Vaxholm and Oscar Fredericsborg; and, in the interior, Carlsborg, near Lake Vetter. The navy comprises 4 turret ships, with 10-inch armor, armed each with 2 10-inch and 4 5.9-inch guns, and having a total displacement of 12,450 tons; 4 armor clad monitors, 9 armored gunboats, 3 corvettes, 9 first-class and 5 second-class gunboats, 2 torpedo cruisers, 7 first-class and 9 second-class torpedo boats, 5 torpedo launches, and 12 school ships. The navy is manned by 267 officers and about 4,500 sailors, not including conscripts to the number of 8,500 men. The entire cost of the defence of Sweden exceeds ten million dollars a year.
The movement for a reorganization of the defences has not been caused by any change in the policy of peace, which has faithfully been carried out by all the rulers of the Bernadotte dynasty. The ruler of Sweden and her people desire peace, but not as a gift of mercy from the great powers, but as a self-chosen right which can be effectively defended if necessary. The ever-increasing armament of the European powers has made a strengthening of the Swedish arms unavoidable, but the Swedish government was the first to announce its readiness to accept the invitation of Czar Nicholas II. of Russia to a conference for the discussion of a general reduction of the regular armies. Germany was made the pattern for the reorganization of the army and navy, the Swedish government having followed the German also in the treatment of the labor question, with schemes of accident and old-age insurance, accepted by the Riksdag.
King Oscar, at his succession to the throne, gave evidence of his desire to meet the reasonable demands of his Norwegian subjects. He sanctioned, in 1873, the abolitionof the office of a governor-general of Norway, the government at Christiania to be presided over by a Norwegian minister of state. To the later Norwegian demands for a separate flag, consular service and ministry of foreign affairs, King Oscar has been unyielding. The flag question is of subordinate importance. King Oscar, in 1899, has refused to sanction the resolution of the Storthing, three times passed, for a flag without the mark of Union, for the reason that the flag with that mark was offered to Norway by his father, Oscar I., and gratefully accepted when the country had no colors at all, except the Swedish. The Swedish people will carry their old flag with the mark of Union, irrespective of any changes made in the Norwegian colors. More serious are the questions of consular and diplomatic service. In 1893, the Swedish government offered to compromise by establishing a common ministry of foreign affairs whose head might be indifferently a Swede or a Norwegian. This was rejected by the Norwegian Storthing. The same offer was made in 1837, when the dispute first arose, provided that the Norwegian troops should share the duty of the common defence of both kingdoms. The Swedish Riksdag of 1893 passed a resolution, in compliance with which King Oscar for a second time refused to sanction the bill of Norwegian consulates.
The diametrically opposite views which are held in regard to the relations of Sweden and Norway are, to a great extent, caused by a misconception of the nature of the Union. In lack of a Union parliament, it has by many been considered to be only a personal union of two countries under the same king. Such is not the case. It is true that the two countries are both free and independent states and that the king is the only visible bond between them, according to the Act of Union, but the Union is nevertheless anactualand not apersonalone. If it was only personal, the king could at will, or when forced to do so, resign his power in one of the countries and continue his reign in the other. The Act of Union cannot be changed except upon a resolution, enacted in both of the respective diets, and with the sanction of the king in behalf of the Union. A change can be made at the same Swedish Riksdag at which it is proposed, at the Norwegian Storthing not until the next regular session. As a consequence the Union cannot be dissolved by the representatives of either country alone, and the king cannot dissolve it by exercising any power of his own. The king cannot abdicate one throne without abdicating the other, for the first paragraph of the Act of Union stipulates that the two countries shall be indissolubly and irrevocably united under the rule of the same king. No abdication can be granted, except by common consent of the two diets in joint session. When the two thrones are empty, without an heir-apparent, a new king shall be elected by the two diets in common. What underlies the Norwegian claims of a separate foreign ministry is, besides to own an outward sign of the country’s independence, a desire for a closer constitutional control of diplomatic affairs. From the Swedish side the desirability of a Union parliament and a greater authority for the Union government has been expressed. The Swedes have been found unwilling to grant any change of the constitution of the Union, except the right be added for the Union government to dispose of the military forces of both countries, in equal proportion, for the common defence. King Oscar’s standpoint in the Unionist conflict has contributed much to increase his popularity in Sweden, where his firm refusal to sanction anymeasure which would cause a weakening to the Union has been received with the highest approval.
A committee to review the relations of the Union and propose a revision of its charter was appointed in 1897, but failed to accomplish anything, the views of the Swedish and Norwegian members differing too radically in their opinions. It is to be hoped that the ultimate solution of the unionist conflict, whensoever it come or whatsoever it be, will bring the two countries of the Scandinavian peninsula closer together, without any great sacrifice on either side, least of all of their independence.
During the more than eighty years of peace which Sweden has enjoyed under the rule of the Bernadotte dynasty, she has developed her constitutional liberty and her material prosperity in a high degree. The dreams of glory by conquest belong to days gone by, but in the fields of peaceable industries she has attained a greatness which the world begins to realize. At the expositions of Paris in 1867, 1878 and 1889, of Vienna in 1873, of Philadelphia in 1876 and of Chicago in 1893, Swedish industry and art have taken part with honor in the international competition. The railways of Sweden have incessantly spun a more and more extended network of steel over the country, opening connections for enterprises in new districts and furthering commerce and industrial art in a wide measure. Oscar II. is an enthusiastic friend of railway improvements, the state having built and acquired a quite considerable length of road at his initiative. The length of Swedish railways, in 1896, was 6,145 miles, of which 2,283 miles belonged to the state, compared to a total of 1,089 miles of Norwegian railways.
The post-office, which was made a government department by Axel Oxenstierna, in 1636, annually transmits 130million letters and parcels. The telegraph lines have not reached a very high state of development; still there are 14,600 miles of telegraph. The telephone has made much more progress, far surpassing that of any other country in Europe. The total length of the connections exceeds 40,000 miles, and the number of apparatus is more than 25,000. Stockholm makes the widest use of the telephone of any city in the world, with her 300,000 inhabitants having a telephone for every thirty. Sweden has developed into a commercial country of no inconsiderable rank, notwithstanding her isolated position. Exports and imports each exceed yearly in value $100,000,000, the imports being 344,290,000 kronor and the exports 311,434,000 kronor in value, in 1895, a Swedish krona being about twenty-eight cents. The commercial value of the foreign trade amounts to thirty-nine dollars in yearly average for each inhabitant of Sweden, which is about as much as in France. The imports chiefly consist of coal, coffee, salt, cotton and wool, while the exports are timber products, about forty per cent of the whole, iron and steel, the best in the world, machinery, butter, cattle, matches, etc. The inland navigation and commerce are very lively. The state finances are in a prosperous condition. The budget of 1898 showed total receipts of 120,086,000 kronor, of which 14,229,000 was surplus from proceeding budgets.
Thanks to the well equipped and regulated system of instruction, the general education has been so highly advanced that Sweden, in this respect, holds the very front rank among the nations. Besides the national universities of Upsala and Lund and the state medical college of Stockholm, city universities at Stockholm and Gothenburg have been recently founded which are quickly developing. Allstudy at the universities consists of post-graduate work, there being about thirty colleges in various parts of the country which lead their pupils as far as the demands requisite for entering the universities. The Swedish university courses are of unexcelled thoroughness and completeness. The so-called Peasant High Schools are peculiar to Scandinavia, having originated in Denmark. There are twenty-five such high schools in Sweden, which give to young men and women of the peasant class a higher education than is available in the common schools, of which latter there are 10,702, with 692,360 pupils and 13,797 teachers.
Scientific research progresses with energy and success, and Sweden possesses to-day a great number of eminent scholars, even if the epoch of men of universal genius appears to be a thing of the past there as elsewhere. Swedish scientists have opened closer relations with their co-workers in all parts of the world. The energy of King Oscar has brought about several congresses of science at Stockholm. In the natural sciences, Sweden still holds an honored place, in physics offering two great names, Eric Edlund and A. J. Angstrœm, the latter celebrated for his work on the solar spectrum, which forms the basis for the spectral analysis. Death has claimed these men and also J. A. H. Gyldén, an eminent astronomer; J. G. Agardh, C. W. Blomstrand, H. O. Nathorst, J. E. Rydquist, able botanist, chemist, agriculturist, and philologist, respectively; Pontus Wikner, the most remarkable of the disciples of the philosopher Bostrœm, and Victor Rydberg, the philosophical poet, novelist and polyhistor.
Among the most noteworthy of living Swedish scholars are Adolph Norén, Axel Koch and Esaias Tegnér, Junior, philologists; Hans Hildebrand and Oscar Montelius, archæologists; P. Fahlbeck, Nils and Magnus Hœjer, Martin Weibull, Ernest Carlson, historians; A. M. Mittag-Leffler, mathematician; Hugo Hildebrandsson, meteorologist; E. A. H. Key, E. O. T. Westerlund, Anton Wetterstrand, F. J. Biornstrœm, T. F. Hartelius, Curt Wallis, prominent in various branches of medical science.
King Oscar with fervent interest and unfailing liberality has encouraged various scientific explorations, and has had the satisfaction to see the greatest geographical discoveries of the century successfully made by Swedes, the circumnavigation of Asia and Europe, and the discovery of the Northeast Passage by Baron N. A. E. Nordenskiold, and the exploration of Central Asia by Sven Hedin, which has forever settled the learned disputes of ages. A third expedition, the most daring of scientific exploits ever attempted, still keeps the world in suspense as to its final outcome. July 11, 1897, S. A. Andrée, a scientifically experienced aëronaut, with two companions, Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel, started in a balloon constructed for the purpose, and with provisions for three years, from an island of Spitzbergen, with the purpose of reaching the North Pole. The daring aëronauts have not been heard from since their departure, but authorities like Baron Nordenskiold have expressed the best of hopes that they may have reached Franz Joseph’s Land in safety, whence they might regain settled regions.[6]S. A. Andrée belongs to a class of men, the Swedish engineers, who have won distinction for their ability, and on whom the examples set by Christopher Polhem and John Ericsson have had a stimulating influence. There are among them two inventors of the very first rank, who belong to the reign of Oscar II., Alfred Nobel (d. 1896), the inventor of dynamite, and Gustavus de Laval, the Swedish Edison. The latter is world-famous for his separator and other inventions, which have revolutionized the dairy industry. Alfred Nobel, the disciple of John Ericsson, has not only the glory of having invented one of the most useful helpers of mechanic and industrial progress, but also that of having set aside his vast fortune, amounting to something like $12,500,000, for public purposes. The money is so invested as to constitute a fund the interest of which shall be applied to five equal annual prizes, to be awarded for the most important discovery or improvement in chemistry, physics or medicine, for the work in literature highest in the ideal sense, and to the one who shall have acted most and best for the fraternity of nations, the suppression or reduction of standing armies, and the constitution and propagation of peace congresses. The first prize, physics and chemistry, shall be awarded by the Academy of Science of Sweden; that for physiology and medicine by the Carolin Institute of Stockholm; the literary prize by the Swedish Academy; and that for the propagation of peace by a commission of five members elected by the Norwegian Storthing. He especially directed that in distributing these prizes no consideration of nationality shall prevail, so that he who is most worthy of it shall receive the reward, whether he be Scandinavian or not. It seems that the sum of each of the five annual prizes thus instituted will amount to $75,000. The inventor of dynamite was deeply interested in all that was done to promote peace by congresses and societies. He always considered that by improving war material, and thus increasing the dangers ofwar, he was contributing his share toward the pacification of the world. Alfred Nobel has, by the manner in which the Norwegian Storthing is made an active party in the disposition of his will, indicatedhisview upon the Union of Sweden and Norway and his hopes for a peaceful solution of their conflicts.
Swedish literature, after the period of dilettantism and epigones, has, during the reign of Oscar II., twice been rejuvenated and continues its development on broadened paths and with a wider scope. The eighties were characterized by a strong realistic movement, which went far in daring truth of description and brought problems of a social, religious and political nature under discussion in works of a novelistic or dramatic form. In naturalism, it never went to the extremes of the other Scandinavian literature. The movement was to a great extent brought on by Norwegian and Danish influence, and soon subsided for want of solid and fascinating art to maintain it. The Swedish champion of this movement, although without the restrictions of any school, was August Strindberg, a genius of extraordinary endowment. Through the versatility and power of his talent, he created new forms for the Swedish drama, novel, short story and essay. In his battle against reactionary conservatism he went too far; an excitable nature, led into extremes, but he has had the manly courage to confess and regret his mistakes. Strindberg, who is an able historian, ethnographer, naturalist and sinologue, is the most versatile and prolific of contemporary writers. In the wide scope of his genius and originality of his methods, Strindberg is one of the most remarkable dramatists that ever lived. His autobiographical works are of supreme importance, both to the students of literature and psychology. Among his masterpieces are “Master Olof,” the great historic drama of his youth, “Swedish Fates and Adventures,” and “Utopia Realized,” two series of short stories, and “The Father,” a modern drama of unsurpassed tragic grandeur.
Several women took an active part in the literary discussion of social problems, with more or less justice considered as the champions of women’s rights. Among these Anne Charlotte Leffler, duchessa di Cajanello, in spite of her premature death, developed into a novelist of merit who will be placed side by side with Bremer, Knorring and Carlén.