The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1942-07-02
COMMENT ON WORLD
EVENTS

The successor to the late Danish
Premier, Thorvald Stauning, veteran
Socialist and trade union leader, might
have been expected to be one of the
two or three candidates of whom the
Nazis would have approved Neverthe-
less, he is Wilhelm Orla Buhl, minister
of finance in the Stauning coalition
government.
1t is now revealed that when Pre-
mier Stauning died on May 3, the
Danish cabinet was in full agreement
on appointing Bull as Stauning's sue
cessor. The King also. accepted him
with joy, and Buhl was appointed
through a legal coup d'etat, so to
speak that is, without telling the Nazi
protectors" anything about it.
AS Buhl is Socialist and a staunch
opponent Of the Nazis, many heated
discussions with them followed. The
only result, however, was that the Ger
mans compelled the new government to
issue declaration the main theme of
which was that it would continue to
follow the lines of the previous gov
ernment in it's attempt to maintain "a
good relationship with Germany"
But Bull remained. 1t is hard to
avoid the impression that the Germans
do not feel as strong as they did, or
they would never had stood for this
independence on the part of country
whose independence they had sworn to
respect.
Despite Nazi occupation of Denmark,
the Danish labor movement is growing.
The international Federation of Trade
Unions reports that on Dec 81, 1941,
the movement comprised y unions
with total membership of 526,566, an
increase of 1887 compared with 1910.
The increase is due partly to the
affiliatiOn of new union, the Sheet
Metal Workers, with 7,S49 members
The rest of the increase is due to the
gain in membership of AZ unions, while
27 had to register some loss of men,
bers and two remained unchanged.
This is partly due to changes in occu-
patton caused by the war.
The growth of the Danish labor
movement has been a steady one since
1923 when it had $4,000 members. In
1882 it reached the 100000 mark and
in the middle of 1887 it passed 100000.
1t passed 100000 in 1910.
In the game period the independent
trade unions had to register continu-
GUS decrease in the number of unions
and in members. Today they number
only II unions, 24,933 members. The
big gains of the national movement
have not been mainly due to unaftili
ated unions joining. The greater part
of the increases have come from the
masses of unorganiZed workers, which
shows that not only the national move
ment, but trade unions ideas generally
have made in Denmark, just as in all
other Scandinavian countries, great
progress.
X X x
We must win the war and the right
of way must be yielded to the national
government in all matters necessary to
accomplish that objective. But our i'm
mersion in that objective and in our
individual problems of adjustment to
a wartime economy should not be so
complete as to cause us to ignore the
problems of local governments. Cities
and towns must continue to educate our
youth, to protect persons and property,
to carry out health and sanitation
measures, and to care for the under
Cities and towns must also
continue to raise the money with which
to finance these and other services. The
difficulties of performing these duties
are increased MANIFOLD in wartime,
and in addition local officials must as
sumo new duties arising from the
Municipal Letter.