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SWEDEN’S ECONOMICAL DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN THE YEARS 1862 AND 1913. 17
countries has also made great advances in the course of the last few
years; however, it doubtless still admits of considerable development.
This may be said with still more truth of Shipping, which a
newly-awakened interest has aroused out of the torpor into which it had sunk,
in consequence of various unfavourable conditions, during the last quarter
of the nineteenth century. Several new direct lines to foreign parts of
the world and the steadily increasing tonnage of steamers testify forcibly
to the reality of this awakening.
Fishing is in Sweden an occupation of minor importance, although,
owing to the return of the herring to the Swedish coast, improved methods
of sea-fishing, and a more scientific pisciculture, it has in recent years
yielded a continually richer harvest.
Shooting, which was formerly a very important means of subsistance,
can no longer be reckoned as a special branch of industrjr. It must be
regarded now, to a great extent, merely as a means of recreation and a
sport.
Banking finally, which supplies to modern industrial life its motive
power, capital, has attained a high pitch of development in the form
of savings-banks, land mortgage-banks, and commercial banks proper.
Both by administering the floating capital of the country, and by
advancing money for productive work, it contributes largely to the promotion
of industry. A richly developed insurance system guards against the
various risks which menace property.
It will be apparent even from this brief survey that the sources of
livelihood in Sweden are extreme^ rich and varied. It will also be manifest
that Sweden has for a generation been undergoing a process of
transformation, the tendency of which is to convert the manufacture of the raw
article into the manufacture of the finished article, and to apply
industrial methods to all spheres of occupation. Sweden is thus undergoing
the same process of development as the great civilized countries have
already undergone. In Sweden too this development is attended by a
steadily increasing prosperity and a rapidly augmenting national
revenue. We shall endeavour briefly to sketch also this aspect of Sweden’s
national economy with its most recent developments.
However, before we pass over these calculations, we shall adduce a
few data as to the course af development in this domain during the last
half-century.
Sweden’s Economical Development between the Years 1862 and 1913.
The prevailing feature of Sweden’s national economy during the last
half-century is a vigorous development. This development has gone on
in spite of the fluctuations between bad and good times which have
occurred during that period, and which now recur with great regularity.
In former days bad harvests and wars were the chief causes.
Nowadays it is the rythm of economical life itself that causes the bad times
Z—133179. Sweden. II.
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