The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-04-13
FINLAND 'SLONG STRUGGLE
characteristics of the People
Russia Seeks to Subjugate.
THEIR LOVE OF LIBERTY
Marked Differences Between Their
Home Surroundings and Those Of
the Russians-Has Been an OBJ
ject Of Contention to Russia and
Sweden Since Twelfth Century.


the Russians-Has Been an OBJ
ject of Contention to Russia and
/ Sweden Since Twelfth Century.
1t is not only as one of the little
peoples" and little countries appro-
priated by Russia, but because OF Its
peculiar political condition, that Fin
| land has, of late, commanded especial
! interest. Always a covetable morsel,
| ii has given its ursine deyourer In
tense uneasiness Its fate still hangs
in the balance, with the great inter
rogation ever present to the watching
world, "is IL or is 1t not to be per-
manently absorbed by Russia?" Fin
! land, however, will never be satisfied
until the rights of self-government
are truly and not nominally restored.
When the Russian was foisted up
on them by their adaptive parent
country, as the official language, the
Firms positively refused 1t for gener-
eral conversation. The government
has now given up trying to compel
it's use, so that it Is only taught In
the universities.
Finnish is distinct from all other
languages, though it is thought to
have been used throughout the whole
of Russia and northern Scandinavia
1t is said to be the most melodious
survival of the Tower of Babel. With
sixteen infections. made by as many
endings to the same root, il is much
more difficult to learn than the Rus
sian.
Broadly considered, it is the speech
of a nation of about three millions
of people. not so many as the dwell
ers in Greater New York Their
land has an area as large as the Unit
ed Kingdom. with Holland and Bel
GUM attached. 1t is very accessible.
readily reached from St Petersburg
Stockholm, or Newcastle.
Travelling is cheap; railroads are
good and cars are comfortable;
steamers are many. yet Suomi or
the Land of Thousand Lakes" per-
chance of ten thousand, is, as yet.
little known.
One reason why the Grand Duchy is
peculiarities of the climate 1t varies
greatly in different parts of the coun-
try. In the south, where the longest
night is eighteen and half hours,
the winter lasts seven months. In the
north there is total darkness for two
months. But to the Finn winter is the
season of seasons, the Gulf Stream
somewhat tempering the cold. The
short summers, however, with the
midnight sun to be seen in the Arctic
portion for two months, are delight
full for travellers. The changes in tenn
perature, it is true, are somewhat
startling. Sometimes the thermom-
eter from intense heat falls below
the freezing point in August on the
bog lands. The results to crops
especially to barley-are disastrous,
and Finland is a vantage of famine
In one dreadful years 100 900 of the
inhabitants died from starvation.
The Firms are by nature an agri-
cultural people. Having been for
such a length of time nomads the
raising of little crops, during halts,
brought out their innate love for farm
ing and finally overcame the tenden-
cy to wander. Thus they have fol-
lowed the laws Of history, the pre-
dominating class now being the bon
aer or peasant owners of small farms.
These they may have taken from larg-
er farms, in colonization, or may
have been able to secure separately,
in smaller plots between rivers.
Then there are the torpares, or
peasant tenants, who rent small Sec
tions of land called tOrps, which are
parts of larger estates. Their rents
are moderate, sometimes only few
days work. sometimes a certain fixed
proportion Of crop of grain. After
these come the cottagers, owning lit
tie garden patches, with, perhaps, pas
ture for a COW or two, and then the
inhysngar. or dodgers, who seem to
be a species of travelling laborer,
somewhat like the lumbermen, who
are often found in our Northwest.
Leaving out the Russian oppres-
sions, which at one time almost
amounted to a scheme for serfdom,
the general attitude of dominant SOW
ereignties to Finland, has been free
dom for internal development.
Great thought and effort have been
spent towards economic progress.
There too. is strong democratic
tendency; mobiles are selling heredit-
airy estates to peasant farmers, who
can make more of them than they,
and more cheaply These middle class
people, as in America. often rise to
prominent positions by force of char
acter, educate their children at the
universities, and aid the levelling pro-
cess, which is fatal to feudal tradi-
tions.
Any one now may own land of any
kind, and the mobiles have no longer
the right to possess estates without
taxation Many of the most aristo-