LABOR LEADS A UNITED NORWAY
Strong, Dennis F.
Labor Leads A United Norway By Dennis F. Strong Oslo TO RESIDENT Americans, the most striking feature of Norway is that so much is being done with so little. Fully 95 per cent of Norwegian...
...Mining, manufacturing, and engineering export industries average 135 per cent of the 1938 base, while the home industries stand at just 105 per cent of pre-war levels...
...Norway is committing 8 per cent of its national income to direct defense expenditures...
...Labor Party leaders recognize this, and hope some.day to see at least two of the parties join forces...
...Ill After the experience of surprise attack and humiliating occupation, Norway was in the market for arms and for membership in any Western military alliance...
...The Norwegian merchant fleet, which supplies a third of Norway's foreign income and was 60 per cent lost in the war, has been built up to a record of six million tons...
...Today its power seems secure for the immediate future...
...National unity soared highest after the liberation from Nazi occupation...
...an additional 250,000 reserves are trained to mobilize in a matter of hours...
...Such is the case with Norwegians, their junior partnership in NATO, and their absolute dependence on trade with the Western powers...
...Noble but dominating nature has isolated the Norwegian and bred in him an individualism, strong principles, and a taste for the simple and rugged life...
...In 1945 the military budget was set up at four times the 1939 figure...
...Certain signs already point in that direction, from confusion in the work of young artists and intellectuals to cynicism among industrial workers...
...programs in the role of a special interest group...
...But for five years, net capital formation was at a rate twice that of the pre-war average...
...Events dictated this course on first taking power in 1935: over 42 per cent were unemployed, agricultural prices sagged, and German fascism loomed over Europe...
...In speeches and writings, Labor Party leaders have thrown off the pacifism they preached in the 1930's...
...The Norwegian spirit of Christian charity has even approached martyrdom, as in the mild treatment of violent Russian accusations and Oslo's consciously hearty welcome to German Winter Olympic guests...
...Labor Party leaders are aware of the shortcomings of their present social welfare program, just as they are of the nation's critical housing needs...
...The impact of rearmament on their limited economy and rising standard of living is becoming increasingly more evident...
...although it had governed since 1935, this was its first absolute majority...
...The Norwegian social welfare program has been maintained at the highest possible level in post-war years, but a number of gaps remain which have just been too expensive to fill...
...By every index Norway's economy has never been stronger...
...Most important, Norway's 3.3 million people, spread thin the length of a mountainous land with 2,200 miles of coastline, cannot possibly defend themselves unaided...
...For four years Labor led the country in the role of a drudging, frugal, and scrupulously fair mother to many mischievous children...
...The political opposition is split among the Conservatives (23 seats), Liberals (21), Agrarians (12), and Christian People's Party (9...
...the secure, responsible legislators lead no demonstrations...
...The Norwegian people were determined to rebuild, expand, and secure their land against a second occupation...
...This is much less than in either of the other two Scandinavian countries: Denmark and Sweden, respectively, use 9 and 10.9 per cent of their national incomes...
...IV The government's "objective" position has overwhelming popular support...
...It has repeatedly pressed for a negotiated settlement in Korea...
...The events of the next few months may well settle the pattern of Norwegian public opinion for many years to come...
...There is no pattern of coalition among these parties, so that each is plagued with offering modifications to Labor DENNIS F. STRONG, a graduate of Yale University, went to Norway for economic research on a Fulbright award...
...It guards the shortest Moscow to New York bomber route with some 80 German-built coastal forts...
...in postwar years the average has been 69,000-man days...
...The government set up subsidies, wage, price, and credit controls, and an import monopoly...
...The question of NATO membership evoked tremendous pressure from the Soviet Union (and from the United States, which tied membership to aid), was hotly debated, and set off a major strike—but the majority of Norwegians faced up to the cruel fact that their policy of neutrality, which had brought 180 years of peace, was good only so long as Scandinavia was considered a remote corner of Europe...
...It has full employment, a steadily rising standard of living, and no visible signs of social discontent...
...Basic to a successful "planned" expansion of the economy was, of course, the checking of inflationary pressures...
...Thereafter, however, the inflationary pressures of devaluation and post-Korea rearmament hit Norway hard: from January, 1950, through June, 1952, the cost of living went up 25 per cent...
...It submitted opposition to Greek and Turkish membership in NATO and would bitterly fight Spain's membership...
...Life for most Norwegians is still bound in by snow-spotted mountains, winding fjords, vast forests, and long winter nights...
...in the words of a Foreign Military spokesman, Norwegians "refuse to accept the idea that the split between the great powers is final and irrevocable...
...These measures limited the cost-of-living increase to only two per cent from June, 1945, through December, 1949...
...army...
...Industry is limited to three resources: forests, the fish from an endless coastline, and a sizable hydroelectric power potential...
...Its 80,000-man active army is the equivalent of a 3.8 million-man U.S...
...Two-thirds of Norway's consumer goods are imported, besides a substantial part of the raw materials'for home markets...
...They only stress that first things—industrialization and rearmament—must come first...
...The 1945 elections gave the Labor Party a mandate to do the job...
...In the four immediate pre-war years the average annual strike loss was 601,000 man-days...
...By 1951 production in every field had been increased more than enough to cover the 11 per cent increase in population since 1938...
...Today, through clear realization of these facts, Norway's arms program is more than nine times greater than pre-war proportions...
...The lack of any effective political opposition may become a serious threat to Norwegian democracy...
...In 1940, after British naval actions and Germany's invasion, military leaders identified Norway as the northwest flank of Eurasia...
...The Norwegian Labor Party gained its broad support by abandoning fixed socialist objectives in favor of democratic national unity through a program of gradualism...
...Russian student and cultural delegations attract full house audiences...
...II The government's entire economic program has therefore been centered around increasing investment in industries earning foreign exchange...
...Fully 95 per cent of Norwegian territory is lost to unproductive rocks, mountains, and forests, which means that Norway can grow barely half the food she requires...
...In 1949 Labor won 85 seats...
...The optimistic idealism which such actions exemplify is of course a direct contradiction of Norway's foremost concern with national security and sovereignty, and it is a contradiction to which Norwegians almost universally turn their backs...
...If economic strains are coupled with the continued frustration of hopes for world betterment, a broad revaluation of foreign affairs is inevitable...
...There are as yet no signs of rebellion, but the gap between the worker and his leader is certain to widen...
...In the role of impartial, enlightened mediators, Norwegians strongly support groups advocating Moral Rearmament and One World...
...all dental and minor medical fees must, however, be borne by the patient...
...Beyond the vital job of protecting national resources, the government's single post-war objective has been to maintain internal social stability—to equal and surpass the population's 1938 material standard of living and its comparatively equal distribution— in the face of a war loss of five , years potential growth in the nation's productive plant, plus the net destruction of one fifth of its capital equipment...
...Unemployment has not been as low in Norway since 1820...
...In spite of its great limitations, Norway is probably economically strongest and socially most stable of all the European countries which participated in World War II...
...These losses were doubly serious because they were concentrated in export industries, the backbone of Norway's economy...
...There is strong criticism of McCarthyism, French and British colonial policies, and America's "turning its back on China...
...The total annual public expenditure for social welfare is 8.3 per cent of the net national income...
...Under these conditions Norwegian nationalism has expressed itself in a dogged determination to maintain a measure of neutrality in the cold war, and to champion consistently peace and democracy...
...Foreign expenditures total 6.5 billion kroner annually, or about half of the gross national income of 13 billion kroner ($1.8 billion...
...These and the problems of war, reconstruction, and rearmament which have followed could only be solved through a national program—immediate, piecemeal, reformist legislation instead of revolutionary planning...
...The frankly pragmatic approach of Norway's Labor government makes it difficult to define its "planned economy...
...It should be noted, however, that while the shift has kept Labor in power, it has not been wholly to the party's benefit...
...He has written more than a dozen articles for American publications on various phases of economic development in that country...
...New industries, located in poor rural areas and based on electric power, have been heavily subsidized...
...The healthy state of Norway today can be traced to a powerful, yet democratic nationalism...
...As such signs multiply, the ideological meaning of Western alliance is surely weakening and being weakened...
...Labor won 76 of the 150 seats...
...The impetus of a complete and dynamic program has disappeared...
...Half of the dozen top government posts have been taken over by intellectual "technicians," economists, and engineers without trade union experience, many of whom live on private incomes...
...Its countless deep, ice-free fjords are ideal bases for guarding the Baltic and Norwegian Seas...
...Norway's repeated refusal to allow foreign troops stationed on its soil in peacetime is probably the best example of its proud idealism...
...The Norwegian Communist Party won 11 Parliament seats in 1945 on the basis of its war record, but lost them all in 1949...
...Membership in the national health program costs a family the equivalent of about one hour's work each week...
...A Sunday school atmosphere has fallen over party meetings," to quote Labor's secretary...
...But for a proud people, united and sensing their new independence, growth, and importance, the intellectual and the emotional acceptance of facts are often two different things...
...The end result would simply be disillusionment...
Vol. 17 • January 1953 • No. 1
