Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Side 167

INTER-NORTHERN COMMERCE
H7
existence of the so-called “Mellemrigs Act”, which was in force
from 1825 till its final repeal in 1897.1) It is however a fact that
this Act gave rise to constant dissatisfaction, that it had to be
amended several times, and that it was at last repealed. A funda-
mental source of trouble was the very fact that it left Sweden
and Norway free to apply their own individual tariffs to goods
from other countries: as the level of the Norwegian tariff was
lower than that of Sweden, the Norwegian industries could im-
port semi-manufactures cheaply, work them up into finished ar-
ticles, and export them to Sweden as Norwegian-made goods, so
that they competed successfully on the Swedish market with
goods of Swedish origin.2) It is possible, and even probable, that
the removal of the inter-Northern tariff walls might produce
analogous results, and thus produce similar dissatisfaction. Fur-
thermore, the agriculture of Sweden, Norway, and Finland would
probably soon feel the pressure of Danish competition if the tariff
walls which at present protect them were removed, so as to let
in Danish agricultural produce. Owing to these obvious difficul-
ties, the proposal might perhaps take a more limited form, so
that only certain selected industries were granted free entry on
the whole Northern market. An attempt might possibly be made,
in so doing, to foster new industries. But in order to avoid giving
any single country a too privileged position, it would almost cer-
tainly be necessary to make the duties on the raw materials and
semi-manufactures used by the industries in question identical in
all the countries in question. Furthermore it would be necessary
to take care that differences in the duties on foodstuffs and ne-
cessaries of life did not create different price levels in the countries
in question so as to give the industries of some of them an undue
advantage over the others as regards working expenses. In other
words, any degree of common tariff legislation would gradually
involve the necessity of still more common tariff legislation,
leading by degrees, if the tariff co-operation between the Nor-
thern countries was to have any lasting character, to a complete
*) A slight increase of the trade between Sweden and Norway, especially
of Swedish exports to Norway, which took place about 1890, may per-
haps be ascribed to this Act. Cf. Poul Drachmann: “The Industrial Develop-
ment and Commercial Policies of the Three Scandinavian Countries. Ox-
ford 1915. p. 62.
2) Ewald Bosse. Norwegens Volkswirtschaft, vol. 2, p. 749.