Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Page 196

FINLAND’S WAY TO PEACE ECONOMY
By Hugo E. Pipping,
Professor of political economy at the Swedish High School of Commerce, Helsinki.
FINLAND had to start planning for peace economy much
earlier than any other country. When the treaty was signed
in Moscow in March 1940, the peace was thought to be
permanent. The evacuated people (about half a million) from
Carelia and Hangö were to be occupied in productive work for
the purpose of compensating, as far as possible, the loss of
productive resources, i.e. fields, forests, factories, and means of
communication. Some questions were to be solved hurriedly, and
in a way that did not increase productive resources. An example
hereof was the Land Reform Act for the benefit of those land-
owners who had lost their farms and estates, and the Act of
Cash Reparations, which were to be paid out in bonds. Other
questions called for a closer study of structural changes that
had taken place. In the autumn 1940 a committee of authori-
tative members, the so-called Production Committee, was elected
for the purpose of investigating the possibilities of maintaining
supplies and employment and of increasing the national income
on the basis of the structural changes in the country.
The programme of the Committee was, however, subjected
to radical changes when the ceded areas were recaptured after
the second outbreak of war in June 1941.
The Committee published an extensive memorandum in May
19421 based upon and setting out from the changed conditions.
But new things were to happen.
In 1943 the military development showed signs of the great
world war coming to an end in the near future, and planning
for an extensive peace economy was started in U. S. A., Great
Britain, and Sweden. Finland was now to draw up a new scheme
for her plans for the future, taking into consideration the altered
conditions, and as far as possible surveying the situation in the
country. Meanwhile the work of the temporary committee had
The memorandum has not been published in extenso but a short sum-
mary may be found in a pamphlet entitled Produktionspolitiska per-
spektiv för Finland (Perspective of Finnish Policy of Production) by
the author of this article.
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