MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.

MAGAZINE.

GENTLEMAN'S

1. Tour in Sweden, &c. by Samuel Laing, Esq. 2. On the Moral State and Political Union of Sweden and Norway, in answer to Mr. Laing, 1840.

THE observations in this work appear to us to be those of aninquiring and informed mind: the view which Mr. Laing gives of a country so closely connected with our own, and yet so dissimilar both in its social system, its political institutions, and its natural character, must lead to an interesting comparison of their relative advantages and excellence; while the inferences which he draws from certain apparent peculiarities and anomalies which he meets with in the course of his observations, and the conclusions he wishes to establish, if not generally admitted, will yet, we think, be found to be based upon something more than partial truth.

In the present state of political feeling, and in the struggle which is now maintaining between those who wish to preserve the ancient institutions which have grown venerable by time, and appear to be approved by the experience of mankind, and those who think the general happiness to be inseparably connected with a new and more popular form of government; it is to be presumed, that the great importance of the subject will force itself on all reflecting minds, and place them on one side or the other of the controverted question. Mr. Laing adopts what is called the more liberal view, and consequently the Norwegian constitution finds more favour in his eyes than the aristocracy of Sweden.

But as the value of facts is to lead to general conclusions, so it is most necessary that these facts should be established on wide and accurate observation; and as Mr. Laing, like other travellers in the present day, spends no more time in the country which he visits than enables him to take a panoramic view of its leading features, we think, that, whether right or wrong, his theories are of less importance than his observations; and no one who has read his work will deny that it presents, if not many finished and elaborate pictures, yet some pleasing sketches of the country and the people among whom he dwelt for a few summer-months. Different countries require travellers of different minds and acquirements: from him, who acquaints us that he has traversed the Italian Alps, gazed on the temples of Pæstum, and measured the gigantic sculpture of Girgenti, we expect a somewhat refined and artist-like knowledge of the principles on which the masterpieces of Italian art are formed; he who, like the late Mr. Douglas, plunges into the untrodden wilds of the western globe, and traverses in many a lone and moonlight journey the immense savanahs of California, will doubtless return laden, as he did, with the rich spoils of rifled nature, and adorn our landscapes with the new and exuberant foliage of a foreign clime; and as neither Medicæan Apollos, nor Doric temples, nor forms of beauty glowing with the hues of Titian's pencil, are to be found on the shores of the Baltic, or on the Scandinavian hills, Mr. Laing wisely directed his mind to the more useful inquiry concerning the constitutional system of the countries, the administration of the laws, the formation of the government, and the wellbeing of the inhabitants.

Mr. Laing justly remarks in his preface. "The future historian will probably complain that the English travellers of the present generation, while they lavish the highest talents on descriptions of personal feelings or adventures, of romantic natural scenery, of striking objects in the sciences or fine arts, have left few of the more humble facts or observations, from which he can appreciate and describe the advance of society in different countries, towards a higher condition of morals, laws, good government, physical well-being, and civilisation. Yet the calm which we have been enjoying for nearly a quarter of a century, after that storm of the French Revolution which shook the world, is perhaps the most important period that has occurred in the history of the human race. New powers, it may be said, have been granted to man during this period,-new intellectual power, by the general diffusion of knowledge through the press,-new physical power, by the general application of steam to machinery and movement. The changes which these mighty agencies are

rapidly producing in the social condition of the lower and middle classes of every country, the circumstances in their ancient institutions, laws, and governments, which are retarding or accelerating the progress of these classes to a condition of higher moral and physical well-being, are objects particularly deserving the attention of the traveller. *** In Norway and Sweden, such inquiries are peculiarly interesting at the present period, because these two nations, although the furthest removed from the agitation of the French Revolution, have, by a singular chance, been affected by it more permanently, and one of them more beneficially, than any others in Europe. Norway received a new and liberal constitution, and has started with the freshness of youth;--a new nation, as it were, called suddenly into life from among the slumbering feudal populations of the North. Sweden received a new dynasty, and slumbers on amidst ancient institutions, and social arrangements of darker ages," &c.

Of Sweden, it is true, as Mr. Laing observes, that none of the secondary European powers have acted such brilliant and important parts in modern history, as the Swedish monarchs. Gustavus Vasa, Gustavus Adolphus, Charles XII. live in the memory of all nations. If the highest achievement with the smallest means be the test of military genius, the Vasa race have not been equalled by any commanders even in our times;* but Sweden has not, like Norway, an heroic age in her history, connecting her earliest exploits with the fate of other countries. The Swedish small kings plundered at home, and became, like the nobility of Poland, a power of which the strongest party disposed of the Crown, and ruled the country amidst perpetual factions, tumult, and bloodshed. The Swedish historian Geyer, one of the most acute and philosophic of modern historians, observes, that the history of the Swedish nation is the history of its kings. He might have added, that the history of its kings is often but the history of the factions and intrigues of a nobility governing in reality from behind the throne and of whose power, the kings, with few exceptions, have, down to the present age, been either the puppets or the victims. The present position of Sweden among the European powers is extraordinary. By the loss of their foreign provinces of Finland and Pomerania, she is severed from the main land of Europe, and its political affairs; and by the singular chance which has seated upon her throne a new line of monarchs not connected by family alliances with any other royal dynasty, she stands politically insulated even more than physically. What has been, or ever will be, the result of this curious political position?

:

The author of the Answer to Mr. Laing's statement appears to be a person who has resided for some time in Sweden, and who possesses a considerable acquaintance with the feelings and character of the people,

Such also is the decided opinion of Col. Mitchell in his eloquent and interesting life of Wallenstein; of the military talents of Gustavus Adolphus, he speaks in the very highest terms, and considers the art of war, as embodied in modern tactics, to have originated with him, and been perfected by him.-Rev.

and the institutions of the country. His political opinions are directly opposed to those of Mr. Laing, and he has remarked on some of his statements with much apparent exactness and justice. Mr. Laing attributed the low moral state of the Swedish nation to its feudal institutions, and the pernicious influence of its nobility. Of the charge of being uneducated, as far as statistical tables go in evidence, the author of the Remarks has liberated them; and he adds that, so far from the nobility holding trade and industry beneath their dignity, several of the first commercial houses in Stockholm have members of this class at the head of their establishments, and the greater proportion of iron manufactories, founderies, and mines, are not only the property of members of the nobility, but personally superintended by them: while, in addition to their scientific and commercial occupations, they embrace generally in youth the profession of arms, not forgetful of those victorious banners which have in the palmy days of their country's greatness floated over the Vistula, the Danube, and the Rhine.

Although the author of this pamphlet repudiates the notion that the low state of morality among the people in Sweden is at all owing to the

Ricardo estimates the whole property of Great Britain at 3,000,000,000l. and according to G. R. Porter's Tables of 1833, the property of the empire is estimated at 3,660,000,0001, and the gross income at not less than 514,000,0007.

pernicious influence of the aristocracy, he owns, at the same time, that, though the state of morality is far from being so low as Mr. Laing would have it believed, yet it is not so high as might be expected from a people so well educated and religious as the Swedish are. The author then gives his solution of the problem, which is to be found in the almost illimited democracy of the constitution.

state of things accrues from the aristocratic organization of the country, or whether it is not, on the contrary, the rising ascendancy of democracy, which has thus effected the decline of the morality of the people? It becomes curious to examine whether the same results have not occurred in England, corroborating thereby the decline of morality by the increase of democracy. The progress of immorality has several other causes in Sweden, more or less of a democratical character, viz. the greater division of landed property than was the case before, which produces misery, and misery crime; and the bad state of the prisons, where no classification is introduced, and where, therefore, people confined for the slightest offences are mingled with inveterate criminals, which tends to harden and demoralize the former. We invariably notice that the greater number of offences committed in Sweden are the deeds of the same persons,

"It is (he says) from this progress of democracy in Sweden,-and particularly from the influence acquired by the order of peasants in the legislation of the country, that a principle of misunderstood liberty has sprung up, which involves the most fatal consequences for the morality of the nation. Acting upon this principle, the order of peasants insist 'that every body has the right to distil his own brandy as well as he has the right to make his own soup,' forgetting that the maintenance of social order imperiously requires the sacrifice of personal rights to the general welfare. The assumed principle of liberty has been so much more detrimental to the Swedish people as the order of peasants has applied it, in the manner generally adopted by democracy when it obtains the upper hand, with all kinds of injustice against the rights of other citizens, and has in the last diet obtained the privilege of paying for its home-distilled brandy even less excise than the very small duty imposed upon the proprietors of other estates for their own distillations; by which means a distilling of brandy has been introduced in nearly every peasant's dwelling,-the number of those officially known amounting to no less than 121,000, of which 120,000 belong to the peasantry. Thus has been produced the fatal result mentioned by Mr. Laing, viz. that the consumption of brandy, which in 1786 amounted only to 5,400,000 kanns for the joint population of Sweden and Finland, has increased now to 22,000,000 kanns for the population of Sweden alone. Under such circumstances it will not be wonderful if the moral state of the rural population of Sweden should decline by degrees from the constant use of a liquor so strong as the common Swedish brandy (generally 6° above proof), and which, being fabricated at home, is within the constant and immediate reach of the peasant. His welfare must suffer from this pernicious abuse in every point of view:-consuming more than his means allowed, it must lead him to moral and physical degradation, and to oeconomical ruin.

"We admit these facts with perfect candour, but we beg to put the question whether, as Mr. Laing insinuates, this

of those, who, their term of confinement being expired, are discharged from prison without any honest means of existence. In this respect the system of transportation adopted by Great Britain offers great advantages, which we fear have not been sufficiently appreciated. It may be true that transportation interferes with emigration, and that it ought not to apply to the fertile and magnificent country of Australia: but Great Britain possesses so many islands, and can dispose of so many points in the Pacific, and other parts of the globe, that the system itself ought not to be abandoned. We admit that the punishment of solitary confinement and of hard labour in the houses of correction is far more severe than that of transportation; but it must be considered that it is not the fear of punishment, more or less severe, which arrests the committal of a crime, for the malefactor is always in hopes of escaping detection, and the consequences of his act. The evil which will result to Great Britain from abolishing or diminishing transportation will be, that the criminals, after the expiration of their respective terms of imprisonment, will be turned loose upon society, which now is the case with but a very small proportion of those transported for less than life."*

In the year 1835 there were no less than 3625 convicted and sentenced to transportation for various periods, of which only 402 were actually transported, the sentences of the remainder having been commuted.