ates to avoid military service.

Norway has a small but efficient navy, composed of third and fourth
class cruisers, monitors, small gunboats and torpedo boats, forty-six
in all, aggregating 29,000 tons, 53,000 horse-power, carry 174 guns,
and manned by 140 officers and 1,000 men. The officers are educated in
naval schools, with a five-year course for regulars and three
years for the reserves, which include all the merchant sailors and
fishermen.

Norway has taken an active part in the promotion of international
arbitration, and has sent delegates to every conference on that
subject. The storthing, in a decided manner, has repeatedly expressed
its belief in that method of settling disputes, and in correspondence
with the Russian government has laid a foundation that may be useful
in case the czar, under any pretext, should use aggressive measures in
this direction. So much interest has been shown in the question
that Alfred Nobel, the Swedish philanthropist, and the inventor
of dynamite, who made his money manufacturing that most powerful
explosive, by his will authorized the members of the Norwegian
storthing to award a prize of $40,000 annually to the person who, in
their judgment, during the preceding year, shall have done the most
to promote peace among nations and the adoption of the plan of
arbitration in the settlement of international differences.

For many years the chief political issue in Sweden has been the
increase of the army and the military service required of each
citizen. The king finally won, and in 1901 a law was passed increasing
the term of service from ninety days to eight and twelve months. The
nation claims that period in the life of every able-bodied man, and it
is given more or less reluctantly.

Every male citizen is enrolled in the army, and at the time when he
becomes twenty-one years of age, he is required to report himself at
the military headquarters nearest home, where he submits to a physical
examination, and if accepted, is assigned to the proper company and
regiment of militia, and directed to report for duty to his immediate
commander. The small number of persons rejected for disability is good
testimony to the health and vigor of the race. Severe penalties are
placed upon those who attempt to escape military service by feigning
illness or maiming themselves, but it is said there are still men who
would cut off one or two of their fingers and run risk of spending
four years in