Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Page 199
FINLAND’S WAY TO PEACE ECONOMY
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that the new small farms will be cultivated with greater intensity
to increase the yield of the area. Whether this will be so is a
question still unsolved, as the proportion of the cultivated or
arable land that will be supplied to the removed population
has not yet been fixed. It has not been decided whether new
land shall be brought under the plough in a centralized way
under public instigation or to what extent the colonists will
themselves have to bring new land under cultivation.
It does not seem impossible, in any case, to bring about cul-
tivation of new land on a large scale in the near future. The
present requirements are certainly great (about 800,000 acres in
all), but it should be remembered that in the i93oes, in peace-time,
80—120,000 acres were brought under cultivation yearly.
In other West European countries (Great Britain and Swe-
den) and in the United States, discussions regarding peace econ-
omy have principally comprised full employment. The aims have
been partly to prevent disturbances in employment in connection
with demobilization of the troops and war industry, partly to
guard against unemployment in connection with a peace crisis
of partial deflation and finally for establishing an economic struc-
ture that will permanently exclude unemployment.
The employment problem in Finland has been considered
from all points but, on account of the country’s economic-geo-
graphical position and the blockade, complications may arise
which must be taken into consideration.
Primarily it should be noticed that Finland has been a coun-
try at war and a great part of the population has been attached
to the army or working in the war industries. Women too have
been employed in war industry and in administrative war-work.
Farming, communications and the metal industry have princip-
ally employed women. Demobilization and the re-employment
of labour at the conclusion of peace will appear greater than in
Sweden where military service hat not been so extensive and
continuous as in Finland. Besides the technical difficulties of
demobilization and the employment of women is the fact that
very few of the younger conscripts have received any training
whatsoever. The replacement of workers will be merely a tech-
nical problem (labour exchange, skilled training, etc.) which must
be omitted in this connection. A programme has been drawn up
for the purpose.
At the planning for a more distant future new problems in