lubricants, iron pyrites, German iron, and hides, skins and print- ing paper. The first article to be appropriated by the State was linseed oil, next came hemp and india-rubber. In 1917 hides and skins were appropriated, as well as lubricants, leather shoe-soles, several metals, rails, paraffin, etc. Tickets for the purchasing of benzine for motor-cars and motor-boats were provided through the agency of the Industry Commission. All fat from the bones of mammals and all offal, etc., were turned to scientific or techni- cal account. The use of carbide lamps increased swiftly, as car- bide is a Swedish product. The Swedish iron-works and factories were constrained to supply iron goods at reduced prices to culti- vators of the soil. In April 1918 rationing of wool began, as well as of cotton yarn, woollen or cotton stockings and woollen or cotton textiles and underclothing of these materials. Purchasing cards were supplied only where the need of them was genuine and " controlled." In Nov. 1918 the rationing ceased.
There was actually no very serious unemployment during the war. A great number of men who lost their work in the building and textile industries were employed in wood-cutting, clearance work in the forests, executing orders for supplies of stone for the communes, etc.
High Cost of Living. High prices were the combined result of scarcity and the inflation of paper money. The prices of goods rose higher than in Great Britain, for example. Official investiga- tions show that if a family which had an income of 2,000 kr. in 1914 sought to keep up the same kind of living its expenditure would have been increased to something over 3,000 kr. a year according to the prices which prevailed in May 1917, and to over 4,850 kr. according to those which prevailed in Oct. 1918. Wages had to be raised considerably. The State granted war bonuses which amounted in all to a sum total of 100,000,000 kr. a year. The State and the communes expended large sums also in subsi- dies. From Dec. 1916 down to the middle of 1920 the sum of 112,500,000 kr. was used for lowering the prices of food, clothes and fuel and, in some exceptional cases, rent, for the poorer classes. Of this amount the State provided 77,000,000 kr. Dur- ing the first half of 1918 389,000 families, or 1,344,000 persons, benefited by purchasing goods at these lowered prices. The building industry was at a standstill almost entirely. The State took steps to help it but without much success.
Changes of Government. At the beginning of the war all the burning questions of internal politics were put on one side, and all efforts were concentrated on solving the problems presented by the new condition of affairs. In the autumn of 1914 the new elections for the Second Chamber took place. The party of the Right remained unchanged in numbers, 86, the Liberals num- bered 57 and the Social Democrats 87. Dissatisfaction with Herr Hammarskjiold's Ministry increased gradually, the Govern- ment as always happens being held to blame for the hardships of the times. The Opposition contended that the ministers showed a lack of diplomacy in their negotiations with Great Britain and that they had not paid due regard to the opinions of the Riksdag certainly the cooperation between the Govern- ment and the Riksdag was not what it might have been. In March 1917 the Ministry resigned. In an address with 600,000 signatures Herr Hammarskjiold and his colleagues were urged to continue in office, but they persisted in their desire to with- draw. Herr Carl Swartz, who previously had been Financial Minister, formed the new Government, which was Moderate Conservative in character.
The Swartz Ministry, in which Adml. Arvid Lindman was again Foreign Minister, lasted only into the autumn. From the start it had borne the stamp of a stop-gap Ministry, inasmuch as the new elections were to be held in September. These went against the Right because, among other reasons, the prevail- ing hardships and the various measures of State interference were laid to their blame. The Right polled 59, the Liberals 62, the Social Democrats 86, while two new parties, the " Bonde- forbund " a league of farmers and countryfolk and the Socialists of the Left came in with 1 2 and 1 1 respectively. The Ministry resigned and the King tried to arrange for a Coalition Government representing all parties. This effort proving un-
successful, the Liberal leader, Prof. Nils Eden, undertook the task of forming a Liberal-Social-Democratic Government. The prime minister himself, the Foreign Secretary, Herr J. Hellner, and five other members of the Government were Liberals; Herr Hjalmar Branting, the leader of the Social-Democratic party, was for a short time Finance Minister; Baron Erik Palmstierna, a former naval officer and a Social-Democratic member of the Riksdag, was Minister of Marine ; there were two other Social- Democratic members of the Government, which adopted a Liberal-Radical programme.
After the War. The Riksdag of 1918 passed, among their legislation, a new Poor Law and a new Education Law, reflecting the increased influence of the wage-earners. The wind of reform blew more and more strongly in the autumn. An extraordinary meeting of the Riksdag was called and very noteworthy de- cisions were come to, which were ratified by the Riksdags of 1919 and 1921, involving (see under Constitution, above) an immense democratizing of the administration. The consequences for the First Chamber showed themselves at once, when the Govern- ment dissolved it in the autumn of 1919 and the new election took place. The chamber had been made up of 86 Conservatives, 43 Liberals, 19 Social Democrats and two Socialists of the Left. This was now altered to 38 Conservatives, 40 Liberals, 19 mem- bers of the " Bondeforbund," 49 Social Democrats and four Socialists of the Left. The greatest novelty lay in the women's vote and in their eligibility for both chambers of the Riksdag.
After the termination of the war in Nov. 1918 the emergency measures were almost entirely abandoned. The regulation of the bacon-and-pork-selling business ceased in Jan. 1919 and the rationing of potatoes in May. In Aug. bread-cards disappeared and the rationing of sugar also stopped on Aug. i. Most of the industrial regulations came to an end during the first quarter of 1919. The Fuel Commission administration of the rationing of fuel terminated on March i of the same year. With the close of May the War Insurance Commission ceased its operation. The Riksdags of 1920 and 1921 renewed in modified form some of the emergency laws, but at the end of the first half of 1920 all that remained of the various Commissions were some small commit- tees of liquidation.
When the League of Nations was still in process of formation the Governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway appointed committees for the purpose of considering together their attitude towards it. The Swedish Government laid its proposal to join the League before the Riksdag of 1920. Opinions were divided: the decision was given in favour of accession by 86 votes against 47 in the First Chamber and by 152 against 67 in the Second. The Riksdag incorporated in this decision an expression of ap- proval of the basic principles of the League, but formulated also its conviction that the Government should avail itself of every opportunity for urging that the States not invited at first to join the League should be incorporated in it as soon as possible; that a more satisfactory arrangement should be come to for the representation in it of the smaller States; that more definite rules should be framed for the meetings of delegates and for their methods of work ; that the standing international tribunal should be constituted as soon as possible, and that its procedure in re- gard to mediation and arbitration should be more clearly defined and further elaborated; and also that efforts to bring about a universal and effective reduction of armaments should be set on foot without delay and vigorously pursued.
Sweden was represented at the International Labour Con- ference in Washington in 1919 and at that in Genoa in 1920, as well as at the League of Nations' first meeting at Geneva in 1920, when the Swedish delegates acted on the lines indicated in the Riksdag's utterance. In May 1921 the question between Sweden and Finland as to the sovereignty over the Aland Islands was settled by the League of Nations in favour of Finland (see ALAND ISLANDS).
Sweden did not formally recognize the Soviet Government in Russia, but at first a Russian representative was allowed to re- side in Sweden to maintain the de facto relations between the two countries. In Jan. 1919 he was obliged to leave (but not until
