Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XI. The Government of Finland and its Future
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respect to the rights of property and work of those
concerned in them. In fact, there is at present
hardly any legal order maintained in the matter. It
is of course impossible to keep communications of a
political character from a nation so advanced as the
Finlanders, and the efforts to do this only make the
ideas and their expression sharper and more bitter.
The tendency of thought in Finland has one
peculiarity, which probably has some relation to the
mixed nationality of the nation. The mass of the
people is greatly influenced by the Lutheran clergy,
who still exercise much of the educational and moral
influence which has always been characteristic of the
Protestant religion. The upper classes in Finland, on
the other hand, continue to follow even more than in
most other countries (excepting the great leading
nations) the liberal movement which is common to the
whole civilised world. The Swedes have always done
this to a greater degree than any other of the small
nations, having become very cosmopolitan since their
participation in the great religious fights of Europe;
and their share was not least during the liberal period
at the end of the eighteenth century before Finland’s
separation from Sweden. At present the Finnish
upper classes are probably more cosmopolitan and
intellectually liberal than the Swedes; for with their
mixed nationality they more readily learn other
languages and the ideas of other nations. The ideas
of life vary in different classes of the Finnish people, the
masses being strongly religious, the upper class
comparatively liberal; but, like Englishmen, they are united in
concerning themselves more with the practical work of
life, and less with theories and sentiments which lack
a goal.
It must not be forgotten that Finnish legal
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