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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
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