The audience looked puzzled. "What's he driving at?" said Eriksson. "It's rather unexpected, but it sounds all right."
"Now, as in the past, Sweden marches at the head of civilization; she has more than any other nation spread the cosmopolitan ideal, and if one may rely on statistics, she has attained a great deal. Exceptionally favourable circumstances have contributed to this result. I will examine them shortly, and then pass on to lighter subjects such as the form of government, the ground-tax, and so on."
"It's going to be rather long," said Eriksson, nudging Arvid, "but he's an amusing chap."
"Sweden, as everybody knows, was originally a German colony, and the Swedish language, which has been preserved fairly pure to our days, is neither more nor less than Low-German and its twelve dialects. This circumstance—I mean the difficulty of communicating with one another, experienced by the provinces—has been a powerful factor in counteracting the development of that unhealthy national feeling. Other fortunate facts have opposed a one-sided German influence which had reached its pinnacle when Sweden became a German province under Albrecht of Mecklenburg. The foremost of these facts is the conquest of the Danish provinces: Scania, Halland, Bleking, Bohuslän, and Dalsland; Sweden's richest provinces are inhabited by Danes who still speak the language of their country and refuse to acknowledge the Swedish rule."
"What in the name of fortune is he getting at? Is he mad?"
"The inhabitants of Scania, for instance, to this day look upon Copenhagen as their capital, and constitute the opposition in Parliament. The same thing applies to the Danish Göteborg, which does not acknowledge Stockholm as the capital of the realm. An English settlement has sprung up there and English influence is predominant. These people, the English people, fish in the waters near the coast, and during the winter very nearly all the wholesale trade is in their hands; they return to their own country in the summer and enjoy their winter profits in their villas in the Scotch Highlands. Very excellent people, though! They have even their own newspaper, in which they commend their own actions, without, it must be admitted, blaming those of others.
"Immigration is another factor of the utmost importance. We have the Fins in the Finnish forests, but we also have them in the capital, where they took refuge when the political situation drove them out of their own country. In all our more important iron-works you will find a fair number of Walloons; they came over in the seventeenth century and to this day speak their broken French. You all know that we owe the new Swedish constitution to a Walloon. Capable people, these Walloons, and very honest!"
"What in the name of heaven does it all mean?"
"In the reign of King Gustavus Adolphus a whole cargo of Scotch scum landed on our coast and took service in the army; they eventually forced their way into the House of Knights. At the East coast there are many families who cherish traditions of their immigration from Livland and other Slavonic provinces, and so it is not surprising that we frequently meet here pure Tartar types.
"I maintain that the Swedish nation is fast becoming denationalized. Open a book on heraldry and count the Swedish names! If they exceed 25 per cent. you may cut off my nose, gentlemen! Open the directory at random! I counted the letter G, and of four hundred names two hundred were foreign.