Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Blaðsíða 246

236
LE NORD
DENMARK
The Bellalioi Com-
memoration Show
and its Back-
ground.
On June 20th,
1938, a hundred
and fifty years
had passed since, by the Royal De-
cree of June 20th, 1788, the Danish
peasant regained his personal free-
dom, that is to say his freedom to
choose for himself where to live
and work; this Decree abolished
the “Stavnsbaand”, which had been
introduced in 1733. It is this all-
important event which forms the
background of the comprehensive
show arranged by the various or-
ganizations of Danish agriculture
under the leadership of the Council
of Agriculture, and held from June
17th to June 26th at “Bellahoj”, a
piece of high ground of about 50
hectares in extent on the Northern
outskirts of Copenhagen, where
town and country meet. His
Majesty the King was the Patron
of the Show, and H. R. H. the
Crown Prince was Chairman of the
Honorary Committee which, with
representatives of Danish trade,
culture, and social life, constituted
its executive. Beyond question, the
most important part of the exhibi-
tion was the Cattle Show, which
embraced about 1700 of the finest
animals of Denmark. There had
previously been larger gatherings of
show cattle, for example at the
annual shows in Jutland and
Zealand; but the elite of all the
domestic animals of Denmark had
not been seen together for almost
forty years, the last occasion being
the Danish Farmer’s Convention
at Odense in 1900. Since then,
the independent tendencies of the
Provinces, an outstanding and in it-
self commendable feature of the
character of the Danish people, had
been an obstacle to a show com-
prising the whole country, and it
required an event so unique as the
150th anniversary of the emanci-
pation of the Danish peasant to
overcome this reluctance on the
part of the provinces and to de-
monstrate once more the develop-
ment and high standard of Danish
agriculture as a whole.
There was some talk of arranging
this Show on somewhat broader
lines as a joint Danish trade and in-
dustrial exhibition, though not on
the same lines as in 1888, when the
centenary of the emancipation of
the peasants was celebrated by a
general Northern exhibition, known
as the Northern Exhibition of In-
dustry, Agriculture, and Art. Quite
rightly Danish agriculture this time
wished to stand alone, convinced
that it had something to show and
something to commemorate which
in itself was great enough and com-
prehensive enough to stand alone.
Nevertheless, the Bellahoj Show
was not a cattle show only. The
object was not merely to demon-
strate the present high technical
standard of Danish agriculture, but