Aftenposten
- The prohibition referendum in Oslo.
- The miners’ strike will probably be called off this week.
- Assembly proceedings concluded.
Aftenposten’s September 27, 1926 front page brought together disputes over alcohol regulation, coal wages and international authority. An appeal from Oslo’s committee against prohibition urged controlled state sales of spirits, citing a prepared bill and rejecting claims that repeal would allow liquor to flow freely. A London dispatch described Cook’s willingness to accept a lower national minimum wage under pressure from returning miners and resolute owners. From Geneva, the paper reported Norway’s Council-election proposal, Nansen’s defence of the Mandates Commission and his protest against hurried Assembly proceedings.
Translation
The prohibition referendum in Oslo.
The forthcoming referendum on prohibition is at least as important as any political election. For the vote concerns questions of the greatest and most far-reaching significance for our people’s morals and economy: the right ways and means of promoting sobriety.
That the present situation, with spirits prohibited, is failing to achieve this goal is evident to everyone who views conditions soberly and objectively. On the contrary, spirits prohibition, accompanied by an ever-growing flood of fortified wines and an uncontrollable torrent of spirits, has caused a distressing deterioration in sobriety.
Under these circumstances, patriotic men and women have taken up the work of seeking to improve conditions. Their deliberations have led them to conclude that the first step must be to repeal spirits prohibition and replace it with controlled sales of spirits, governed by strict rules designed to prevent abuse, while also seeking to introduce provisions into criminal law for more severe penalties for offences committed under the influence of alcohol.
It is untrue when prohibition supporters try to frighten people by saying that repeal will open the spirits taps and let liquor flow freely.
No, as stated, there can be no question of repealing spirits prohibition except in conjunction with, and simultaneously with, the adoption of a law providing for controlled sales.
A fully drafted bill already exists for this purpose: Odelsting Proposition No. 17 of 1924, submitted by Abraham Berge’s government in connection with its proposal to repeal spirits prohibition. Among other things, the proposition proposes that the sale of spirits should be a state monopoly, so that no private interest would be attached to the trade in spirits.
The miners’ strike will probably be called off this week.
London, September 26.
The fact that workers are returning to the mines in steadily increasing numbers throughout the country, together with the owners’ firm stance, has finally forced the miners’ secretary, Cook, to sound the retreat. In a speech yesterday, he accordingly declared that the coming week would be the most critical in the history of the coal industry. He stated that he was willing to accept an agreement providing for a reduced national minimum wage. He accepts the coal report and calls on the workers to make a disciplined retreat.
Assembly proceedings concluded.
Geneva, September 26.
The Norwegian proposal for proportional representation in elections to the Council came before the Assembly. Following a statement by Zahle of Denmark asking the Council to consider the matter, a resolution to that effect was adopted.
The Belgian delegate de Brouckère presented a report on the mandates question. The report takes note of the Council’s communications concerning the mandated territories without entering into the various disputed questions, such as hearings on petitions and so forth.
Nansen regretted that it had not been possible to examine certain questions concerning the League of Nations’ position in relation to the mandatory powers. He stressed the importance of the debate held in the Sixth Committee and stated that the committee unanimously acknowledged that the Mandates Commission had fully discharged its duties. Nansen emphasized the importance of the expression of confidence in the Mandates Commission, since it had been criticized within the Council for exceeding its authority.
Nansen protested that proceedings were being rushed to an improper degree so that they could be finished by a particular day, and stressed the need to allow the Assembly reasonable time in future.
Context
The 1924 bill as an alternative to prohibition
The Oslo committee’s appeal uses Odelsting Proposition No. 17 of 1924 to give repeal a concrete legislative form. It identifies state monopoly as a provision of Berge’s bill, intended to exclude private commercial interests from the spirits trade. Alongside that reference, the committee advocates strict sales rules and heavier penalties for offences committed under alcohol’s influence. Its argument makes sobriety the purpose of repeal itself. Vinmonopolet had already been established in 1922 following negotiations over wine supplies, so a monopoly offered an existing institutional model for controlled distribution.
Wine imports and Norway’s trading relationships
The appeal’s attack on proliferating fortified wines reflected the different treatment of wine and spirits. Vinmonopolet’s history describes how France, Portugal and Spain threatened trade boycotts over alcohol restrictions, while negotiations with France produced an arrangement for ordering wine through a central monopoly. Regulation therefore touched Norway’s export interests as well as domestic drinking. A 1927 government proposition records that, after the repeal majority in the October 18, 1926 referendum, the government sought changes to alcohol treaties and instructed its envoy in Paris to negotiate with France. The proposed domestic reform was thus connected to existing international commercial obligations.
National bargaining amid wage concessions
The dispatch presents Cook’s proposed concession as a retreat under pressure from returning miners and firm employers. A national agreement nevertheless offered something that separate district settlements could weaken: collective bargaining power. That advantage was explicitly discussed in Parliament on August 31, including the possibility of modifying minimum wages while retaining a national framework. The coal report also concerned industrial reorganization. In his May memorandum, Cabinet official Tom Jones described a proposed exchange of reorganization guarantees for temporary wage reductions and recorded employers’ hostility to reorganization. These discussions help explain how accepting a lower minimum could still be part of an effort to secure a coordinated settlement.
September’s retreat and November’s return
The prediction that the strike would end within the week appeared at a moment when the dispatch reported increasing returns to work and Cook’s call for discipline. Together, those developments explain the expectation that organized resistance might soon give way. The struggle nevertheless continued into November: the National Archives records that miners eventually returned for lower wages and longer hours. The September report captures an earlier stage in that process, when a leader’s willingness to concede and the erosion of participation were already visible, but a settlement had not yet followed.
Representation in the League Council
The Covenant gave every League member one Assembly vote, while Council representation was restricted to a smaller group of states. Norway’s proposal addressed how the wider membership elected representatives to that body. New Zealand’s report on the 1927 Assembly, published in 1928, recalls Norway’s 1926 initiative on proportional representation and the single transferable vote, followed by a request for study. The election method mattered because it could change how members’ preferences translated into Council seats. The resolution reported by Aftenposten advanced consideration of that institutional question without yet introducing proportional elections.
The Mandates Commission’s authority to scrutinize
Article 22 of the Covenant required mandatory powers to submit annual reports and established a permanent commission to examine them and advise the Council. Administration, examination and political supervision therefore involved different institutions. The accusation reported by Aftenposten—that the commission had exceeded its authority—concerned the boundaries of that scrutiny. Nansen’s defence affirmed that the commission had fulfilled its duties, while de Brouckère’s report left disputed matters such as petition hearings unexamined. Nansen also demanded adequate time for Assembly proceedings. Together, these interventions reveal concern with both the authority to investigate mandates and the opportunity for substantive deliberation.
Original
Forbudsavstemningen i Oslo.
Den forestaaende avstemning
om forbudet er minst likesaa viktig som noget politisk valg. Avstomningen gjælder nemlig spørsmaal av den største og mest ind-
* gripende betydning for vort folks
moral og økonomi: spørsmaalet om de rette veie og
midler til fremme av
wdrueligheten.
At den nuværende tilstsnd med
brændevinsforbud ikke fører til
maalet, er aapenbart for alle som
ser nøkternt og objektivt paa forholdene. Brændevinsforbudet med
en stadig stigende oversvømmelse
hete vine i sit følge og en spritlom, som ikke lar sig kontrollere,
har tvertom forværret ædruelighetstilstanden i en sørgelig grad.
Fædrelandssindede mænd og
kvinder har under disse omstændigheter tat op arbeidet for at
søke forholdene forbedret og er
som resultat av sine overveielser
blit staaende ved, at det første
skridt maa være at faa brændevinsforbudet ophævet og ombyttet
med et kontrollert salg av
spirituosa, ordnet efter strenge
regler, som tar sikte paa at forebygge misbruk, likesom der samtidig i stiaffelovgivningen søkes
indførst bestemmelser om skjærpet
for overtrædelser, begaat
mder indflydelse av alkohol.
Det er usandt, naar der fra
forbudsfolkets side skræmmes med
at man ved ophævelse av forbudet
vil aapne brændevinskranene og
la brændevinet flomme frit.
Nei, der vil som anført ikke bli
tale om at ophæve brændevinsforbudet, uten i forbindelse med og
samtidig vedtagelse av en lov om
kontrollert salg.
unsvar
/ Der foreligger i saa henseende
et helt utformet lovforslag, odelstingsproposition nr. 17 for 1924,
fremsat av Abraham Berges regjering i forbindelse med denne regjerings forslag om ophævelse av
brændevinsforbudet. I propositionen er bl. a. foreslaat at brændevinsomsætningen skal være statsmonopol, og der saaledes ikke skal
knytte sig nogen privatinteresse
til omsætningen av brændevin.
Grubestreiken avblaases antagelig i denne uke.
London, 26de september.
Den omstændighet, at arbeiderne i stadig økende antal gjenoptar arbeidet i gruberne hele
landet over, samt eiernes faste
holdning har endelig tvunget grubearbeidernes sekretær Cook til at
blaase vetrætsignal. I en tale
igaar uttalte han -aaledes, at den
kommende uke vil bli den mest
kritiske i grubeindustriens historie. Han anførte, at han var villig til at vedta en redueert national minstelønsavtale. Han akcepterer kulrapporten og opfordrer
arbeiderne til en diseiplinert retræt.
Delegeretforsamlingens forhandlinger avsluttet.
Genf, 26de september.
I delegeretforsamlingens møte
forelaa det mnorske forslag om
forholdstalssystem ved valgene
til raadet. Efter en uttalelse av
Zahle, Danmark, som anmodet
raadet om at overveie saken, blev
der vedtat en resolution i den retning.
Den belgiske delegerte de Brouckere avgav beretning om mandatspørsmaalet. I beretningen
tas raadets meddelelser om mandatomraadene til —efterretning
uten at man gaar ind paa de forskjellige stridsspørsmaal, som f.
eks. paahøring av petitioner o.s.v.
Nansen beklaget at det ikke
hadde været mulig at gaa ind paa
visse spørsmaal om Nationenes
Forbunds stilling til mandatstatene. Han fremholdt betydningen
av den debat som var ført i sjette
kommission om saken og uttalte
at sjette kommission enstemmig
anerkjendte at mandatkommissionen helt ut hadde opfyldt sine
plikter. Nansen fremhævet den
betydning det hadde at man hadde
uttalt tillid til mandatkommissionen da kommissionen var blit kritisert inden raadet for at ha overskredet sin kompetanse.
Nansen protesterte mot at forhandlingene blev paaskyndet i en
utilbørlig grad fo: at man kunde
bli færdig en bestemt dag, og
fremholdt nødvendigheten av at
der for fremtiden blev git delegeretforsamlingen rimelig tid.