- Project Runeberg -  Diplomatic Reminiscences before and during the World War, 1911-1917 /
249

(1920) [MARC] Author: Anatolij Nekljudov - Tema: Russia, War
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Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XV. Sweden in 1914

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and then a visit from a scholar or inquiring man of
letters who “discovered” Sweden and then forgot her.
And that was all.

The united kingdoms of Sweden and Norway were
naturally bound to consider Russian interests more
than Russia had to consider theirs. In 1855, Stockholm
profited by the Crimean War, and by the presence of
English and French ships in the Baltic, to extract from
Russia the formal promise—added to the Treaty of
1856—not to keep up any military establishment in the
Aland Islands; in latter days Swedish manufacturers
occasionally came to compete in Russia with those from
other countries, and started a few enterprises which
were very well organised and most successful, but as
a general rule, since 1815, Sweden had ceased to cast
anxious or covetous glances perpetually towards the
Baltic, and from that time the internal development of
the country became more independent and regular;
prosperity began to increase without let or hindrance,
obedient to the natural laws of production, and
strengthened through the happy dispositions and sterling
qualities of the Swedish people.

In the sixties, under Charles XV., some great reforms
completed the definitely constitutional and modern
character of the political structure of Sweden. The
former Diet, or rather the old Etats Généraux, were
replaced by two Chambers, the one elected by universal
suffrage, the other, the Upper Chamber, recruited by a
very complicated system of election, giving the
preponderance to the educated or leisured classes, which
was quite in accordance with the spirit of the age. The
nobility, formerly so powerful, definitely lost all
exclusive rights in politics and administration, and the
famous Riddarehuset, which for so long had been the real
Forum of Sweden, became but a museum consecrated to
the glory of noble families, to their escutcheons and
their trophies, on which could be read the military and
political history of the kingdom.

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