Aftenposten
- The Immoral Ones
- President Relander's Visit
- The Coal Strike Ebbs Away
Aftenposten's page of 30 September 1926 combined a referendum-campaign editorial, a court programme and foreign labour news. Ahead of the prohibition vote, the editorial told readers that the present, prohibition-minded Storting would write whatever replaced the ban, so voting for repeal did not mean open spirits taps; it then turned the word "immoral" back on the prohibitionists by recalling that Mowinckel had used it in 1918 about their voting rules. A long report set out the programme for Finnish President Relander's visit to Oslo from 4 October: a royal welcome at the East Station, lodging at the Palace, a gala dinner, a legation lunch, The Merchant of Venice at the National Theatre and a trip to the Agricultural College. A London telegram reported that the British coal stoppage was ebbing after 21 weeks, with 23,800 men back at work in three days and 137,478 miners employed.
Translation
The Immoral Ones.
We have previously stated very emphatically that no one today can say with certainty what arrangement will replace a possible repeal of the prohibition law. We have said — and repeat it today — that it is the Storting, the present Storting, that will be given the task of framing the legal provisions that must be put in place of the prohibition law itself. And when one knows that the present Storting is indisputably favourable to prohibition, people need not refrain from voting for the repeal of prohibition for fear of open spirits taps. As a basis for a possible new arrangement, reference has been made to the provisions found in the Berge ministry's bill of 1924. But only as a basis, and — precisely in view of the fact that it is the Storting that holds the decision in its hands — it ought not to be necessary to go further into these provisions than we have already done. However, the prohibition people travel around with the Berge ministry's bill and read it to their listeners the way a certain man reads the Bible. Therefore it may from time to time be necessary, for purposes of enlightenment, to return to the bill and attach some comments to it. The other day we examined more closely "Folket"'s claim that we would always have a spirits trade in Norway if the bill of 1924 were raised into law. We have since seen that a prohibition agitator, in total misunderstanding of time and place, has described the whole bill as immoral, invoking statements made in the Storting. — — Had the person in question been a little better informed, he would have taken good care not to use the word immoral in connection with our alcohol legislation. For the word turns with all its force — not against the opponents of prohibition, but against its supporters. The word was in fact delivered during the debate in the Odelsting on the new spirits law in 1918, and was used as a characterization of the voting rules which the prohibition fanatics at that time put into the law. They are immoral voting rules, it was said, and the one who said it was none other than Mr. Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel. To comfort the prohibition agitator who is worried on morality's behalf, we can inform him that the immoral voting rules are not included in the Berge ministry's bill. But it is precisely this that is complained about from another prohibitionist quarter. For in the final analysis it is the immorality in the law that the prohibition people feel best served by. It is, after all, also wholly in the spirit of prohibition.
President Relander's Visit.
Buy Nydalen's Cotton Fabrics. President Relander's visit. The official festivities. — The accommodation. — The gala dinner at the Palace. — Gala performance at the National Theatre. — The visit to the Agricultural College. Finnish Consul General H. Hauan. Finland's Minister in Norway, Dr. S. Elfving. Finnish Consul R. Stephanson. President Relander and his suite arrive in Oslo by the international train at 11:30 on Monday morning. The East Station will be festively decorated for the occasion. The President will be received on the platform by the King and a number of the city's prominent men. During the visit here the President and his suite will stay at the Palace as the King's guests. The President is accompanied, as previously reported, by Foreign Minister Setälä, Agriculture Minister Sunila, Commanding General Sihvo, the head of the Foreign Ministry's protocol office Nykopp, the head of the Foreign Ministry's political and commercial department Baron Yrjö-Koskinen, the head of the Foreign Ministry's legal department Winckelmann, the President's adjutant Major Kekoni and Legation Secretary Sohlman. Finland's Minister in Warsaw, former Foreign Minister Procopé, who was not at first named among the President's suite, has already arrived in Oslo, as has the head of the protocol office Nykopp. Attached to the President during his stay here will be, as mentioned before, Major General K. Domaas, Commander Geelmuyden and Captain Hvinden Haug. The gala dinner at the Palace on Monday 4 October will presumably be attended by the King, the Queen and the Crown Prince and the royal court, including the Mistress of the Robes Mrs. Stang, Court Chief Knagenhjelm, Chamberlain Wedel Jarlsberg and Cabinet Secretary von Tangen. Further, President Relander with his suite and the attached Norwegian gentlemen, Prime Minister Lykke and a number of higher authorities. On Tuesday 5 October the Finnish Minister Elfving gives a luncheon at the legation on Drammensveien. Present will be the King and the Crown Prince with their suite, President Relander with his suite, Prime Minister Lykke and a few higher authorities, in all nearly 20 persons. The same evening there is a gala performance at the National Theatre. The gala performance. For the gala performance a special box will be built at the back of the first tier of boxes, in a similar manner as at the Three Kings' Meeting and during King Edward's visit. In this box the King, the Queen and the Crown Princess will take their seats with their suite; further President Relander with his suite. Beside the box a number of invited guests will be seated, such as the members of the Government, the city's mayor, Bank Director With, Burgomaster Høe and others. The original royal box will be placed at the disposal of the President of the Storting and the head of government. The foreign box is placed at the disposal of the Finnish legation. Minister Elfving and his wife, the Finnish attaché R. Smedslund and the military attaché Captain Rothe will thus take their seats here. At the gala performance a prologue written by Hjorth-Schøyen will be recited by the actor Egil Eide. Otherwise "The Merchant of Venice" will be played. As the heads of state enter the theatre, the orchestra will strike up the two countries' national anthems. On Wednesday 6 October President Relander, with Agriculture Minister Sunila and some other Finnish gentlemen, will travel out to the Agricultural College of Norway. The President will be accompanied by the Norwegian Agriculture Minister Berge, Directors-General K. Fauchald and S. Woxen, and Directors H. Jelstrup, Bjanes and the Director of Veterinary Services. Bureau Chief N. C. Krosby will be attached to the Finnish guests. At the Agricultural College Rector Hasund will act as host. From 12 to 1 the college will be toured, after which lunch will be taken in the great ceremonial hall between 1 and 2:30. Taking part in this, besides the guests, will be all the professors and lecturers of the college, in all about 50 persons. Presumably the King and the Crown Prince with their suite will also be present during the visit and take part in the lunch. For those of President Relander's suite who do not travel to the college, Prime Minister Lykke will hold a luncheon at the Foreign Minister's residence in Parkveien. To this luncheon will also be invited the Finnish consular officials, Consul General and former Cabinet Minister H. Hauan and Consul R. Stephanson, as well as a number of higher civil and military authorities.
The Coal Strike Ebbs Away.
In 3 days 23,800 men have returned to work. London, 29 September. The conference of delegates from the various coal districts, convened by the executive of the miners' federation, met in London today. The conference has not yet reached any decision. After the 21-week stoppage in the coal industry, work is now being resumed to an ever greater extent. At a single pit in Lancashire alone, work was resumed today by 750 men. A secret ballot had been held beforehand, and by a large majority — 3 to 1 — it was decided to resume work. The number of those who have resumed work has increased today by a total of 8,000 men. Over the last three days the increase amounts to 23,800. 137,478 men have resumed work. London, 29 September. It is officially announced that 137,478 miners were employed in the coal pits yesterday. This is an increase of 10,457 over the previous day. Timber prices in Trøndelag.
Context
What prohibition regime was Norway voting on in 1926?
The editorial's quarrel over a 1918 spirits law and its voting rules belongs to a prohibition regime that Norway had built in stages. Partial prohibition had been in force since 1917, and after a referendum in 1919 spirits and dessert wine were also banned. When Aftenposten wrote of repealing "the prohibition law" in September 1926, it meant this ban on spirits and dessert wine, and voters were about to be asked whether to keep it. The editorial reaches back to the Odelsting debate on the new spirits law in 1918, the year between the partial prohibition of 1917 and the 1919 referendum, to recall that Mowinckel had called the voting rules the prohibitionists wrote into that law "immoral". By pointing out that those rules were absent from the Berge ministry's 1924 bill, the text prohibitionists were reading aloud at their meetings, the paper tried to turn the charge of immorality back on the ban's own defenders.
Why did Aftenposten stress that the Storting would decide?
The paper's reassurance that voters need not fear "open spirits taps" rested on the legal form of the coming vote. The referendum, held on 18 October 1926, less than three weeks after this issue, was consultative: a majority against prohibition would not by itself write a new law. The Storting would still have to legislate, and Aftenposten turned that into a campaign argument. A Storting it called indisputably favourable to prohibition would frame whatever replaced the ban, so a vote for repeal carried little risk. The referendum had come about partly under pressure from France, whose exports of alcoholic drinks had fallen under the ban. The result went the paper's way: continued prohibition was rejected overwhelmingly in and around Oslo and in other towns such as Bergen, and the law was then abolished.
How unusual was a state visit like Relander's in Haakon VII's Norway?
The detailed programme of Palace lodging, gala dinner, a specially built theatre box and national anthems reflects how rarely Norway staged such occasions. Norway was then a comparatively poor country, and travelling abroad in the manner expected of a king, and hosting the customary return visits, were expensive, so Haakon VII made and received far fewer state visits than Norway's monarch does today. In the complete list of state visits he received, the one before Relander's was the visit of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Hendrik of the Netherlands in September 1922, and Relander's visit of 4–6 October 1926 is the only one from Finland. The courtesy was returned: Haakon VII went to Finland to visit Relander on 2–4 June 1928. The article's comparison with King Edward's visit reaches back to one of the reign's earliest state occasions, when Edward VII and Queen Alexandra came to Norway from 28 April to 2 May 1908.
Where did the British coal dispute stand after 21 weeks?
The "21-week stoppage" in this telegram dates from the coal owners' lockout, whose notices took effect on 1 May 1926. The General Strike that followed in the miners' support was called off after nine days, but the miners held out alone for months more. Hardship in the mining communities then drove a slow drift back to work through October and November. The Lancashire pit ballot and the rising daily totals announced in London show that drift already under way at the end of September, while the delegate conference convened by the miners' executive had not yet decided anything. The national union gave way only on 19 November, when the national conference of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain allowed its member associations to negotiate local agreements. The dispute ended in defeat, with district settlements, longer hours and wage cuts.
Original
De umoralske.
De umoralske. Vi har tidligere meget sterkt præcisert, at ingen med sikkerhet idag kan fortælle, hvilken ordning som skal avløse en eventuel ophævelse av forbudsloven. Vi har sagt - og gjentar det idag - at det er Stortinget, det nuværende storting, som vil faa til opgave at utforme de lovbestemmelser, som maa sættes istedetfor selve forbudsloven. Og naar man vet, at det nuværende storting uomtvistelig er forbudsvenlig, behøver folk ikke at avholde sig fra at stemme for forbudets ophævelse av frykt for aapne brændevinskraner. Som et grundlag for en eventuel nyordning er der henvist til de bestemmelser, som findes i ministeriet Berges proposition av 1924. Men bare som et grundlag, og det burde - netop med henblik paa at det er Stortinget, som har avgjørelsen i sin haand - ikke være nødvendig at gaa yderligere ind paa disse bestemmelser, end vi allerede har gjort. Imidlertid reiser forbudsfolket omkring med ministeriet Berges proposition og læser den for sine tilhørere som en viss mand læser bibelen. Derfor kan det fra tid til anden i oplysningsøiemed være nødvendig at vende tilbake til propositionen og knytte nogen kommentarer til den. Forleden dag belyste vi nærmere» Folkets «paastand om, at vi altid vilde faa brændevinshandel i Norge, hvis propositionen av 1924 blev ophøiet til lov. Vi har senere set, at en forbudsagitator i total misforstaaelse av tid og sted har betegnet hele propositionen som umoralsk, idet han har paaberopt uttalelser, faldt i Stortinget. - - Hvis vedkommende hadde været litt bedre underrettet vilde han ha voktet sig vel for at bruke ordet umoralsk i forbindelse med vor alkohollovgivning. For ordet vender sig med hele sin styrke - ikke mot forbudets motstandere, men mot dets tilhængere. Ordet blev nemlig avlevert under debatten i Odelstinget om den nye brændevinslov i 1918 og bruktes som karakteristik av de avstemningsregler, som forbudsfanatikerne dengang satte ind i loven. Det er umoralske avstemningsregler, blev det sagt, og den som sa det var ingen ringere end hr. Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel. Til trøst for den forbudsagitator, som er bekymret paa moralens vegne, kan vi oplyse om, at de umoralske avstemningsregler ikke er optat i ministeriet Berges proposition. Men netop det klages der over fra andet forbudshold. For til syvende og sist er det umoralen i loven, som forbudsfolket føler sig best tjent med. Den er jo ogsaa helt og holdent i forbudets aand.
Præsident Relanders besøk.
Kjøp Nydalens Bomuldstøier Præsident Relanders besøk. De officielle fester. - Indkvarteringen. - Galamiddagen paa Slottet. - Festforestilling i Nationaltheatret. - Besøket paa Landbrukshøiskolen. Finsk generalkonsul H. Hauan. Finlands minister i Norge, dr. S. Elfving. Finsk konsul R. Stephanson. Præsident Relander med følge kommer til Oslo med utenlandstoget klokken 11. 30 mandag formiddag. Østbanestationen vil for anledningen bli festlig smykket. Præsidenten blir mottat paa peronnen av Kongen og en række av byens fremtrædende mænd. Præsidenten og hans følge skal under besøket her som Kongens gjester bo paa Slottet. Præsidenten ledsages som før meddelt av utenriksminister Setälä, landbruksminister Sunila, kommanderende general Sihvo, chefen for utenriksdepartementets protokolkontor Nykopp, chefen for utenriksdepartementets politiskeog handelsavdeling friherre YrjøKoskinen, chefen for utenriksdepartementets juridiske avdeling Winckelmann, præsidentens adjutant major Kekoni og legationssekretær Sohlman. Finlands minister i Warschau, forhenværende utenriksminister Procopé, som først ikke var opnævnt blandt præsidentens følge er allerede kommet til Oslo, likeledes chefen for protokollkontoret Nykopp. Attacheret præsidenten under hans ophold her vil som før nævnt bli generalmajor K. Domaas, kommandørkaptein Geelmuyden og kaptein Hvinden Haug. I galamiddagen paa Slottet mandag den 4de oktober vil antagelig delta Kongen, Dronningen og Kronprinsen og det kongelige hof, deriblandt overhofmesterinden fru Stang, hofchef Knagenhjelm, kammerherre Wedel Jarlsberg, kabinetssekretær von Tangen. Videre præsident Relander med følge og de attacherte norske herrer, statsminister Lykke og endel høiere autoriteter. Tirsdag den 5te oktober gir den finske minister Elfving lunch i legationen paa Drammensveien. Tilstede her vil være Kongen og Kronprinsen med følge, præsident Relander med følge, statsminister Lykke og nogen faa høiere autoriteter, ialt henved 20 personer. Samme aften er der galaforestilling i Nationaltheatret. Galaforestillingen. I anledning av galaforestillingen vil der bli bygget op en særskilt loge i fonden av 1ste logerad, paa lignende maate som ved trekongemøtet og under kong Edwards besøk. I denne loge vil Kongen, Dronningen og Kronprinsessen ta plas med sit følge; videre præsident Relander med følge. Paa siden av logen vil endel indbudte faa plas, saaledes Regjeringens medlemmer, byens ordfører, bankchef With, borgermester Høe m. fl. Den oprindelige kongeloge vil bli disponeret av Stortingets præsident og regjeringschefen. Fremmedlogen stilles til disposition for den finske legation. Minister Elfving med frue, den finske attaché R. Smedslund og militærattacheen kaptein Rothe vil saaledes ta plas her. Ved festforestillingen vil en prolog, forfattet av HjorthSchøyen, bli fremsagt av skuespiller Egil Eide. Forøvrig spilles» Kjøbmanden fra Venedig «. Ved statsoverhodenes indtræden i teateret intonerer orkesteret de to lands nationalhymner. Onsdag den 6te oktober vil præsident Relander med landbruksminister Sunila og endel andre finske herrer reise ut til Norges landbrukshøiskole. Præsidenten ledsages av den norske landbruksminister Berge, ekspeditionschefene K. Fauchald og S. Woxen samt direktørene H. Jelstrup, Bjanes og veterinærdirektøren. Byrachef N. C. Krosby vil bli attachert de finske gjester. Paa landbrukshøiskolen vil rektor Hasund fungere som vert. Fra 12-1 besøkes høiskolen, hvorefter lunch indtas i den store festsal mellem 1 og 2½. I denne deltar foruten gjestene samtlige professorer og docenter ved høiskolen, ialt ca. 50 personer. Antagelig vil Kongen og Kronprinsen med følge ogsaa være tilstede under besøket og delta i lunchen. For de av præsident Relanders følge, som ikke reiser til høiskolen vil statsminister Lykke holde lunch i utenriksministerboligen i Parkveien. Til denne lunch vil desuten bli indbudt de finske konsularembedsmænd, generalkonsul, forhenværende statsraad H. Hauan og konsul R. Stephanson samt endel høiere civile og militære autoriteter.
Kulstreiken ebber ut.
Kulstreiken ebber ut. Paa 3 dage 23, 800 mand gjenoptat arbeidet. London, 29de september. Den konferanse av delegerte fra de forskjellige kuldistrikter, som grubearbeiderforbundets styre har indkaldt, traadte sammen i London idag. Nogen beslutning har konferansen endnu ikke fattet. Efter den 21 uker lange arbeidsstans i kulindustrien gjenoptas arbeidet nu i større og større utstrækning. Bare i en grube i Lancashire blev arbeidet idag gjenoptat av 750 mand. Der var i forveien holdt en hemmelig avstemning, og med stort flertal - 3 mot 1 - blev det besluttet at gjenopta arbeidet. Antallet av dem, som har gjenoptat arbeidet, er idag øket med ialt 8000 mand. I løpet av de siste tre dage utgjør økningen 23, 800. 137, 478 mand gjenoptat arbeidet. London, 29de september. Officielt meddeles, at 137, 478 grubearbeidere igaar var i beskjeftigelse i kulgruberne. Dette er en økning fra den foregaaende dag paa 10, 457. Tømmerprisene i Trøndelag.