Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Page 154
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LE NORD
ciency are of course largely dictated by military considerations,
but they are also the result of a desire to co-ordinate economic
forces whose balance is being disturbed by technological develop-
ments. There is no reason to suppose that the world will soon re-
turn to that comparatively unhampered international exchange
of goods which characterized the happy decades before the Great
War. The very word “world economy” has become anathema in
certain countries: economy should be national, i. e. it should be
subservient to the purposes of the State. The wider acceptance
this theory finds, the more difficult does existence become for
the small nations with comparatively undifferentiated resources,
and the obstacles thus placed in the way of international com-
merce become in their turn incentives to projects of economic co-
operation, customs unions, etc., between certain groups of neigh-
bouring States. Nevertheless, it is characteristic of several of these
projects that they rest much less on actually existing trade con-
nections than on national affinities or historical traditions, and
in some cases on geopolitical or geographical considerations as
well.
One project of economic co-operation between neighbouring
States which has often attracted public attention is that between
the Northern or Scandinavian countries. The words “the North”
and “Scandinavia” have a fine ring, not least in Danish ears. In
a dangerous world there is comfort in thinking of friends and
good neighbours. The idea of Northern co-operation is always
sure to find a good reception in Denmark. Nevertheless, the fact
must be faced that the realization of such a scheme, and its work-
ing out in detail, must not depend on sentiment, but on actual
conditions.
One need not seek far in order to find a number of natural
differences between the production of the Northern countries.
Denmark is above ali an agricultural country: as late as 1935 it
produced 56 per cent. of all the bacon and 22 per cent. of all the
butter which entered the international market. Norway, and espe-
cially Sweden and Finland, are rich in forests. Together they
produced in 1933 36.5 per cent. of the sawed timber, 85 per cent.
of the wood pulp, and 71 per cent. of the cellulose on the inter-
national market. The Icelanders catch more fish per head than
any other nation, while the total fishery production of Norway
exceeds that of any other European country. Sweden is one of the
richest countries in the world as regards iron, and exports 7/8 of
her production of ores. The industrial development of Finland,