Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1940, Page 89

ECONOMIC FELLOWSHIP
83
part in the trade of Finland than Finland in that of Sweden. In
Finland agriculture was the chief sufferer, but some other
branches of trade were also adversely affected. The iron industry
for instance, which — it is true — was of very secondary im-
portance, was prejudiced by the restriction in the supplies of iron
ore and pig iron from Sweden.
Yet it is easy to overestimate the difficulties created by the
loss of markets. The division of work referred to above had not
been a factor of quite primary importance in the economic life
of the two countries. At the time of the political separation both
Sweden and Finland were largely agricultural communities, and
the interchange of goods attained only very moderate figures.
Local self-sufficiency was a prominent feature in the economic
life of both countries, and there was comparatively little of eco-
nomic specialization and of division of work between different
districts. Apart from Stockholm and the coastal regions of Fin-
land the immediate effects of the separation did not cut very deep
and they caused far less disturbance than would have been the
case, if separation had come later, when the countries would have
been welded into an economic unity to a far greater extent than
what was possible under the less developed conditions prevalent
at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The greatest difficulties which arose in Finland as a conse-
quence of the separation were of another kind. The Finns like
the Swedes were accustomed to a considerable amount of political
freedom, and in the Swedish parliament, the “Riksdag”, they had
taken direct part in the government of the kingdom. Now the
administrative apparatus of Finland was for a long time robbed
of some of its power of initiative and in particular it lacked the
element contributed by the Riksdag. The Finnish parliament,
which was organized on the Swedish pattern, was not convened
till the i86os, and later on the repeated attempts of the Russian
authorities to encroach upon that measure of freedom and self-
government which had been granted in 1809 had an adverse in-
fluence on the legislative and administrative work and reacted
unfavourably on the development of economic policy. Thus
many reforms in the economic field were delayed and the tradi-
tional system of industrial regulation, inherited from the mercan-
tilist era, was partly maintained into a period, when it had be-
come a much more oppressive burden on economic activity than
before.