BOOK to secure the public prosperity. The stubborn partisans of CXLVIII. commercial restrictions have not been able to prevent the reduction of duties on colonial commodities imported by the North Americans; freedom of trade is on the eve of being proclaimed in Sweden. Ameliorations. The government favours every where the use of vaccination, the division of lands, the draining of marshes, the establishment of colonies to render useful the lands newly brought under culture, the cultivation of the oak, and the ameliorating the quality of wool. Canals and roads are multiplying; measures are adopting to render more equal, and consequently more supportable, the burden of military service; the organization of communes and departments is undergoing the changes desired by the people; the lands are almost all of them registered; steam-vessels establish frequent communications betwen the maritime towns ;‡ in fine, the increase of population since 1821 is such, that in 61 years it will be doubled ; an evident proof of general prosperity. We may then say with confidence, that the people of Sweden and Norway enjoy, under the protection of a government constitutionally free, a happiness guaranteed by the present generation to posterity. In Norway the conscription has been several years established; the duration of military service is from five to seven years. + See Account of the general administration of the kingdom, dated at the palace of Stockholm, the 15th Nov. 1828. Bulletin des Sciences de Fevrier 1829. Report made by the minister of the interior to the last legislative assembly of Norway. Report of the Royal Commission for Statistics, made to the king on population, &c. Stockholm 1828. Bulletin des Sciences de Mars 1829. STATISTICAL TABLES OF THE SWEDISH MONARCHY. Table of the Divisions, Geographical, and Administrative, ancient and modern, of the Scandinavian Peninsula.* * M. Ad. Balbi calls it the Norwegian-Swedish monarchy; but he proposes the name of Swedo-Norwegian, as softer in pronunciation. M. Hagelstam, a learned Swedish geographer, divides the kingdom into three great parts; and these again are subdivided into twenty-four laen or prefectures, which have come in place of the ancient division into provinces. || The bishoprics and arch-bishoprics are pointed out by the marks † and ‡. In the Isle of Eland. III. NORTHERN REGION-Norrland or the country of the North. BOOK Norway is divided into three physical regions, and into four diocesses, composed of sixteen districts or bailiwicks and two counties. We do not mark the capital of each district, because neither the travels of M. de Schubert, nor the map of Mr Hagelstam, nor the royal almanack of Sweden point them out. |