Aftenposten
- Bernard Shaw.
- The Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry.
- Should the railways be reserved for long-distance traffic and motor vehicles for local traffic?
Aftenposten's front page of 12 November 1926 carried a portrait of George Bernard Shaw, who had turned 70 that summer. The paper found nothing of dignified old age in him, described him as the same unruly, irreverent "G. B. S." as ever, and said that only his outward circumstances had changed. A Nobel notice reported that the Academy of Sciences had divided the 1925 physics prize between Professors J. Franck of Göttingen and G. Hertz of Halle for the laws of collisions between electrons and atoms, and had given the 1926 prize to Jean Perrin of the Sorbonne for work on the discontinuous structure of matter and sedimentation equilibrium. A transport report set out the railways' position: long-distance and goods traffic should stay with the railways, local traffic could go to route buses, and any competition had to be on equal terms.
Translation
Bernard Shaw.
Shaw turned 70 this summer, but there is nothing about him that brings to mind the dignity of old age. Both in manner and in productivity he is still the same unruly and irreverent "G. B. S." he has always been. What has changed are the outward circumstances in which he lives.
The Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry.
The Academy of Sciences has decided to divide the Nobel Prize in physics for 1925 between Professor J. Franck in Göttingen and Professor G. Hertz in Halle, as a reward for their discovery of the laws governing collisions between an electron and an atom. It was decided to award the Nobel Prize in physics for 1926 to Professor Jean Perrin of the Sorbonne, as a reward for his work on the discontinuous structure of matter, and in particular for his discovery of sedimentation equilibrium.
Should the railways be reserved for long-distance traffic and motor vehicles for local traffic?
On the railways' side it was argued that long-distance traffic and goods traffic must essentially be reserved for the railways, while local traffic could, with certain reservations, be left to the route buses. The railways would not oppose competition, but it would have to be competition on equal terms, and careful consideration would have to be given to whether the services offered were the same.
Context
Why Shaw was on the front page on 12 November 1926
The Shaw portrait appeared the morning after the Swedish Academy named him laureate. In November 1925 the Academy had declared that no Nobel Prize in Literature would be awarded, and under the Nobel Foundation's statutes the prize could then be reserved until the following year. After its 1926 deliberations the Academy decided that Shaw should receive the prize for 1925, and it announced the decision on 11 November 1926. The excerpt itself does not mention the prize. It concentrates on Shaw at 70, still the irreverent "G. B. S.", and on how his outward circumstances had changed. The physics notice on the same page likewise reported decisions on both a 1925 and a 1926 prize, which shows that delayed awards were being announced together that autumn.
Aftenposten's premature Olav Duun announcement the day before
Aftenposten had itself misreported the literature prize the previous day. According to the English Wikipedia article on Olav Duun, the paper, certain of a rumour, announced Duun as the winner on its front page on 11 November 1926, before the Swedish Academy announced Shaw later that day, and the error became a publication scandal in Norway. Duun was a genuine contender. He wrote in Landsmål, the written language built from rural dialects that developed into Nynorsk, he was among the writers nominated for the 1925 prize, and he was nominated 24 times between 1924 and 1939. The same article states that he lost to Shaw by just one vote, a claim that comes from that secondary account rather than from this front page. The Shaw portrait of 12 November therefore appeared the day after the paper's mistake, though the excerpt does not refer to the episode.
Shaw's long road to the prize and the Academy's own verdict
Shaw's award followed years of nominations. He was nominated seven times before he received the 1925 prize in 1926. The first recommendations came in 1911 from the British scholar Gilbert Murray and in 1912 from the Norwegian academic Kristian Birch-Reichenwald Aars, an early Norwegian link to his candidacy. A month after this edition, at the ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1926, Per Hallström, chairman of the Swedish Academy's Nobel committee, praised Shaw's ready wit and "a complete absence of respect for any kind of convention." Aftenposten's word "respektløse" (irreverent) thus singled out the same trait that the Academy would put at the centre of its own praise.
The state railways as both rival and operator of buses
The railways' call to keep long-distance and goods traffic while leaving local traffic to route buses came when the Norwegian State Railways had itself just begun running buses. The Storting's Standing Committee on Railways, in its recommendation of 10 December 1921, said that where traffic would be too small to give any good income, the possibility of an automobile route should always be considered instead of a railway. On that basis it was decided that the State Railways would start test routes to gain knowledge of this form of transport, and the first three test routes opened in late 1925. By November 1926 the railways were therefore both competitors of private route buses and operators of buses on thin routes. The division of labour they proposed, with buses serving local traffic, fits that experience. The excerpt does not say who convened the meeting at which the railways made their case.
Original
Bernard Shaw.
Shaw fyldte 70 aar i sommer. men der er intet hos ham, som bringer tanken hen paa den alderstegne værdighet. Baade av væsen og i produktivitet er han fremdeles den samme uvorne og respektløse» G. B. S. «, som han altid har været. Det, som har forandret sig, er de ydre forhold, hvorunder han lever.
Nobelprisene i fysik og kemi.
Videnskapsakademiet har besluttet at dele 1925 aars Nobelpris i fysik mellem professor J. Franck i Göttingen og professor G. Hertz i Halle som belønning for deres opdagelse av lovene for støtene mellem en elektron og et atom. 1926 aars Nobelpris i fysik besluttedes tildelt professor Jean Perrin i Sorbonne som belønning for hans arbeide vedkommende materiens diskontinuerlige struktur, specielt for hans opdagelse av sedimentasjons likevekt.
Skal jernbanene forbeholdes langlinjetrafikken og bilene lokaltrafikken?
Fra jernbanenes side blev det fremholdt, at langlinjetrafikken og godstrafikken i det væsentlige maatte forebeholdes jernbanene, mens lokaltrafikken med visse forbehold maatte kunne overlates rutebilene. Jernbanene vilde ikke motsætte sig konkurranse, men det maatte bli en konkurranse paa like vilkaar, og det maatte nøie overveies om ydelsene var de samme.