Aftenposten
- The desperate economic situation of Norway's farming, forestry and fishing population.
- Plan.
- Oslo decides to introduce the newly revised hymnbook.
Aftenposten's front page of 9 November 1926 led with the "desperate" economic situation of Norway's farming, forestry and fishing population. In the excerpt, a speaker introduces a meeting whose heavy programme starts with the rural economy, with committee reports to come, among them one on the currency and the discount rate chaired by Asmund Enger. A short editorial, "Plan.", argued that leaving each distressed municipality to fend for itself would achieve nothing, and demanded quick, methodical action with the initiative taken by the central administration. A church report described Oslo's parish councils meeting in the great hall of Logen, at the invitation of Our Saviour's parish council, to discuss the new revised hymnbook, which the headline said the city had decided to adopt.
Translation
The desperate economic situation of Norway's farming, forestry and fishing population.
… will see, it is a heavy and weighty programme that lies before us at this meeting. First of all, there is the economic situation in the rural districts. Under that heading, recommendations will be presented from the committees working on these matters. One committee, with Asmund Enger as chairman, has worked on the currency and the discount question.
Plan.
… speaking, nothing will be done if every distressed municipality is now left entirely to itself, and the central administration only takes action once the news of disaster has arrived. In our view, action must now be taken according to a plan, quickly and methodically, and the initiative must be taken in the central administration.
Oslo decides to introduce the newly revised hymnbook.
The parish council of Our Saviour's parish had invited the city's parish councils to a meeting yesterday evening in the great hall of Logen to discuss the introduction of the new hymnbook. The meeting was chaired …
Context
How the krone's rise from 1925 squeezed Norway's rural districts
The speaker in the lead story names the economic situation of the rural districts as the meeting's first item and mentions a committee, chaired by Asmund Enger, on "the currency and the discount question". Those were the levers of the parity policy Norway pursued from 1920 to 1928: an effort to restore the krone's pre-1914 gold value, carried out chiefly through the central bank's interest-rate and lending policy. From 1925 the krone rose against foreign currencies, at times abruptly because of speculative buying, and prices kept falling, partly as a result of a deliberate deflationary policy. Falling prices make debts fixed in kroner harder to carry, and the strain showed in forced auctions across the country: 742 in 1920, 2,547 in 1925 and 4,463 in 1929. Economic historians link the agricultural debt crisis, together with the banking crisis, to the parity policy. Aftenposten's headline called the situation of farming, forestry and fishing people "desperate" while this squeeze was under way.
Norges Bank, Nicolai Rygg and the dispute over parity in 1926
Norway's parity policy was closely identified with Nicolai Rygg, head of Norges Bank, and politicians were wary of intervening directly in monetary policy. From 1925 in particular, some economists and representatives of the Agrarian and Labour parties attacked the policy sharply, yet no political majority ever formed behind an alternative. The financial system was fragile: more and more banks failed or, from 1923, were placed under administration. In 1925 a private company, A/S Securitas, was set up to support the share prices of Den norske Creditbank, Bergen Privatbank and Kreditkassen, and Norges Bank granted it a credit line of just over 20 million kroner. The operation was kept secret to stop shareholders rushing to sell, so readers in November 1926 knew nothing of it. The krone finally returned to par on 1 May 1928. The editorial "Plan.", in the passage translated here, addresses relief for distressed municipalities rather than monetary policy, but its demand that the central administration act on a plan, instead of waiting for news of disaster, came amid this long, centrally driven deflation.
The Agrarian Party and its first leader, Johan E. Mellbye
Farmers gained their own party in this period. Store norske leksikon describes how Norwegian politics between 1905 and 1935 moved towards a much weakened Liberal Party, a new party, the Agrarian Party (Bondepartiet), and a smaller Conservative Party. The Agrarian Party's first leader, in 1920–21, was the farmer and politician Johan E. Mellbye, who had earlier been Minister of Agriculture in 1904–05 for the Conservative Party and who sat in the Storting in the 1925–27 term. Historians count the party's strong growth among the developments linked to the parity policy, and Agrarian representatives were among the policy's sharpest critics from 1925. The lead-story excerpt does not name the organisation holding the meeting, but its agenda, the rural economy first and then the currency and the discount rate, covers the same questions on which agrarian politicians were challenging Norges Bank's course.
What the revised Landstad hymnbook was
The "new hymnbook" that Oslo's parish councils met to discuss was Landstad's Revised Hymnal (Landstads reviderte salmebok). It grew out of a royal resolution of 1908 that commissioned Dean Gustav Jensen to propose a revision of Landstad's church hymnal. Although Jensen wanted to keep the character of Landstad's book, he made extensive changes to the choice of hymns and to their texts, and also included hymns in Nynorsk. After years of committee work the book was approved for public worship in 1924 and published in 1926, so in November 1926 each congregation faced the practical question of whether to adopt it. The report shows the city's parish councils meeting at the invitation of Our Saviour's parish council, and the headline states that Oslo decided to introduce the book. The revised Landstad then remained the Church of Norway's official hymnal, alongside the Nynorsk hymnal, until 1985.
Original
Den fortvilede økonomiske situation for Norges jordbruks-, skogbruks- og fiskeribefolkning.
vil se, er det et tungt og vektig program som foreligger for os for dette møte. Det er for det første den økonomiske situation i bygdene. Der vil derunder bli fremlagt indstillinger fra de nævnder, som arbeider med disse ting. En nævnd har arbeidet med valutaen og diskontospørsmaalet med Asmund Enger som formand.
Plan.
talt intet vil bli gjort, hvis hver nødlidende kommune nu overlates helt til sig selv, og centraladministrationen først tar affære, naar ulykkesbudet er der. Efter vor opfatning maa der nu handles ut fra en plan, hurtig og metodisk, og initiativet maa tas i centraladministrationen.
Den ny-reviderte salmebok besluttes indført i Oslo.
Vor Frelser sogns menighetsraad hadde igaaraftes indbudt byens menighetsraad til et møte i Logens store sal for at diskutere indførelsen av den nye salmebok. Møtet blev ledet