Aftenposten
- Life insurance in the Nordic countries
- Christians and prohibition
- Control of home distilling is impossible
A Nordic insurance congress shares the front page with an argument about Christianity and prohibition, a report on home-distilling fines, and crime coverage. The selected texts add the congress’s long-delayed invitation, the priest’s distinction between temperance and prohibition, and the limits of what enforcement statistics reveal.
Congress introduction, the opening of Aarestrup’s argument and the full short distilling report. The continuation pages and detailed crime reports are not included.
Translation
Life insurance in the Nordic countries
A survey on the occasion of the seventh Nordic life-insurance congress, opening in Oslo today.
Before the war, Norway lagged far behind its neighbours in total sum insured. It has now practically caught up.
At ten this morning, the seventh Nordic life-insurance congress opens its proceedings in the University’s aula. After twenty-two years, the men engaged in this important social work are gathering here again from throughout the Nordic countries to exchange experience and plan their further efforts. We have explained how it came about that only now has the invitation Director M. S. Hansson extended twenty-two years ago, at the Copenhagen congress, to meet in Oslo become a reality. Between then and now lie 1905 and the world war.
Christians and prohibition
By J. Aarestrup, parish priest of Sagene.
It is strange that genuinely thoughtful and earnest Christians should wish to help form an organization they call the “Christian People’s Temperance Council.” They must know that this is sailing under false colours. They must know that speaking of “the Christian people” will be understood to mean that all Christians must agree with this organization, for in ordinary usage “the Christian people” means all Christians. The organization’s name thus passes judgement on everyone who is not a prohibitionist. Yet such judgement contradicts both the spirit and the words of him who said, “Judge not!”
Nor is calling it a temperance council entirely honest. They work for prohibition, and surely cannot be blind to the fact that sobriety can be promoted by means other than forbidding everyone to drink all kinds of spirits, wine and beer except malt beer.
Control of home distilling is impossible
Experience in Trøndelag
Special telegram to Aftenposten.
Trondheim, September 14.
Statistics on home distilling in Trøndelag show that 161 people were fined for it in the first half of this year: twenty-five in the towns and 136 in the counties.
Controlling home distilling is difficult, if not impossible, and no one can say how much is now being distilled.
Context
Why life insurers needed a Nordic congress
Life insurance promises payments far into the future, so its development depended on accumulated mathematical and statistical knowledge. A congress for exchanging experience was therefore part of the industry’s practical infrastructure: companies needed methods for judging risks and sustaining long commitments. The article’s comparison of total sums insured places Norway’s growth in that shared Nordic profession, explaining why hosting the meeting could be presented as a national achievement.
Why a priest could oppose prohibition while supporting sobriety
Church circles had been important participants in Norway’s temperance movement, but Aarestrup rejects the claim that a particular policy follows automatically from Christian identity. He separates the moral goal of sobriety from a universal legal ban and uses the Christian injunction against judging others to challenge exclusion within the faith. The dispute is thus about who can speak for Christians as well as which method will reduce drinking.
Why home distilling weakened the case for prohibition
Norway’s prohibition encountered growing problems with smuggling and home distilling during the 1920s. Banning legal supply did not remove the demand for spirits; it shifted part of production beyond ordinary supervision. The Trøndelag report makes that difficulty concrete: officials could punish detected cases but could not establish the total scale. Enforcement capacity therefore became part of the political argument over whether prohibition was an effective way to limit alcohol’s harms.
Original
Livsforsikringen i Norden.
En oversikt i anledning av den 7de nordiske livsforsikringskongres, som aapnes i Oslo idag.
Norge som før krigen laa langt tilbake for nabolandene, maalt efter den samlede forsikringssum, har nu praktisk talt indhentet disse.
I formiddag klokken 10 aapner den 7de nordiske livsforsikringskongres sine forhandlinger i Universitetets aula. Efter 22 aars forløp samles igjen denne betydningsfulde samfundsgjernings mænd fra hele Norden til utveksling av erfaringer og planlægning av det videre arbeide. Vi har fortalt hvordan det gik til, at det først nu er blit alvor av den indbydelse som direktør M. S. Hansson for 22 aar siden fremkom med paa kongressen i Kjøbenhavn til at møtes i Oslo. 1905 og verdenskrigen ligger imellem.
De kristne og forbudet.
Av sogneprest til Sagene J. Aarestrup.
Det er merkelig at virkelig tænkende og alvorlige kristne kan ville være med paa dannelsen av en organisation som de kalder »Kristenfolkets ædruelighetsraad«. For de maa vite at dette er at seile under falsk flag, de maa vite at naar de taler om kristenfolket, vil dette forstaaes, som om alle kristne maa være enig med denne organisation; ti efter almindelig sprogbruk betyr »kristenfolket« det samme som alle kristne. I organisationens navn ligger altsaa en dom over alle dem som ikke er forbudsfolk. Men en saadan dom er mot baade hans aand og ord, som sa »Døm ikke!« Naar de kalder organisationen ædruelighetsraad, saa er dette heller ikke fuldt ut ærlig. Ti de arbeider for forbud, og kan vel ikke være blind for at ædruelighet kan fremmes paa anden maate end ved at forby alle at drikke alslags brændevin, vin og øl undtagen vørterøl.
Kontrol med hjemmebrændingen umulig.
Erfaring fra Trøndelag
Specialtelegram til «Aftenposten».
Trondhjem, 14de september.
Statistiken over hjemmebrændingen i Trøndelag viser at aarets første halvdel har 161 personer faat mulkter for hjemmebrænding. Av disse falder 25 paa byene og 136 paa fylkene.
Kontrol med hjemmebrændingen er vanskelig for ikke at si umulig, og hvor meget der nu brændes kan ingen si.