A BIG, LITTLE STATE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 11, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 15.

A BIG, LITTLE STATE.

BETWEEN the Denmark of which the old King Christian IX. became ruler in 1863, and the Denmark of which his son Frederick VIII. takes the crown, there is a vast difference. At the very beginning of his reign King Christian saw himself stripped of half his realm by Prussia's seizure of the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg. Denmark profited by the experience.

Nature gave the tiny kingdom, which is less than twice as large as New Jersey, a dominant position at the mouth of the Baltic. Both Germany and Russia, with their ambitious schemes of naval expansion, have had good cause to covet the Danish coign of vantage.

But the best defense of Denmark has been abstinence from world politics and consistent neutrality. While Germany has gone on burdening its people with excessive taxes to build up a tremendous military machine, little Denmark's army amounts to hardly more than a police force. For each square mile of Germany Kaiser Wilhelm has kept three soldiers under arms, to say nothing of a costly navy. For each square mile of Denmark King Christian has less than one soldier.

The Danes have chosen to work for their own welfare by minding their own business. All told they number about 2,500,000 souls, about the population of Manhattan and the Bronx. Germany has made phenomenal progress in industry and trade, yet with all her vast resources she buys and sells nearly one-third less in the world's markets, man for man, than Denmark.

Nowhere in Europe has agriculture been put upon a more scientific basis than in the narrow peninsula. About two-thirds of the entire population live by farming. Danish butter is not only England's chief supply—it circumnavigates the globe in tin; 125,000,000 pounds are sent abroad every year.

It is a state too little studied by its bigger competitors. A people essentially democratic in spirit, abolished its nobility half a century ago, while retaining for convenience the forms of a constitutional monarchy. Education, but not military service, has long been universal and compulsory. The proportion of illiteracy is small, as is that of pauperism. The Danes have prospered even in greater measure than the people of other small states like Holland and Switzerland. Their wealth has been in strength of character, not in bigness.—Selected.