Stilled Land

Across Finland last week a stillness covered the cities like a fresh fall of snow, silencing the roar of traffic. In Helsinki neither trams nor buses ran. People walked, or queued up for the occasional taxis that moved through the city's neglected, ice-encrusted streets. Ships lay idle in Helsinki Harbor, while others stayed gripped by offshore ice because no sailors were around to man the icebreakers. Factories and railroads were closed down. There were no newspapers, no mail. A citizen who slipped on the icy sidewalks could not get into a hospital. He could not even get a drink, because no liquor was for sale.

Finland was gripped by the first general strike in its 36-year history as a republic. The strike was brought on by 200,000 members of the trade union federation who walked off their jobs, demanding a 6% wage increase to meet a recent hike in dairy prices made by Finland's farmers' marketing organization. As the strike entered its third week, all industry was at a standstill, and strikers were hard pressed for money to feed their families. But there was a remarkable absence of any real violence among the imperturbable Finns. At week's end, the government got workers and employers together for a settlement.

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