Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Page 171
INTER-NORTHERN COMMERCE
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sary to permit the free movement of capital and men across the
old frontiers, so that they could be employed anywhere within
the union. One consequence of this would be that the relief of
unemployment would have to be an affair of the union and not
only of the constituent States.
If the North were united on this basis it would not be a
customs union but a political union, and if this should ever take
place it will hardly be as the result of a politico-commercial agree-
ment; it could only be brought about by a wider and more com-
pelling necessity: in commercial policy the Northern States have
far too little to offer each other.
When the potentialities of the inter-Northern trade are taken
into account, its present extent must be regarded as considerable.
Calculated per head of the population it is by no means insigni-
ficant. In 1937 every inhabitant of Norway bought goods from
Denmark to a value of about 28 kroner, each Swede goods to a
value of 16 kroner, each Finn goods to a value of over 10 kroner,
and each Icelander goods to a value of over 66 kroner, while each
inhabitant of Germany only bought goods to a value of a little
over 4 kroner. Each inhabitant of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland bought goods to the value of 18 kroner. Thus the Swedes
and the British buy about the same amount from us per capita.
But while the British buy goods which are Danish in the strictest
sense of the word, our exports to Sweden and the other Northern
States largely consist of transit goods and goods manufactured
from foreign raw materials or semi-manufactures. For Denmark,
as for the other Northern countries, it is true to say that the vital
part of her foreign trade, i. e. that which forms the basis of the
intensive exploitation of her productive resources, is the trade
which is carried on beyond the borders of the North.
The growth of human civilization involves, and is conditioned
by, an increasingly comprehensive and intensive collaboration be-
tween human beings. A large part of this collaboration takes place
within the borders of the individual States, and has a national
character. German political geographers maintain that the big
State represents a higher stage of development than the small one.
Small States are imperfect organisms, it is asserted, in the evo-
lutionary scheme. According to this view, a united North would
mean a progressive stage in comparison with the present state of
things, but yet an imperfect stage in comparison with the great
powers.
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