Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/468

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NORWAY.

through a first training in the school of recruits, extending over not less than 42 days, and are then sent on furlough, with obligation to meet for an annual practice of 24 days. Every native of Norway, between the age of 18 and 45, who is able in body, is bound to enter the Landvaern for 3 years, to be trained in arms at stated periods, and subsequently to be placed on the rolls of the Landstorm. The Landvaern only serves for the defence of the country, and the Landstorm is only raised in time of war. It is provided by the law of 1SG6 that the number of troops actually under arms shall not be more than 12,000 men in time of peace, and that, in war, it shall not be raised above 18,000 without the express consent of the Storthing. The king has permission to keep a guard of Norwegian volunteers, and to transfer, for the purpose of common military exercises, 3,000 men annually from Norway to Sweden, and vice versa. Otherwise, it is not allowed to any Norwegian soldier to set foot in the sister kingdom.

The naval force of Norway comprised, at the commencement of 1869, twenty vessels, with an armament of 168 guns. The following, according to official returns sent to the Statesman's Year-book, was the composition of the fleet : —

3 iron-clad monitors.

2 steam frigates

3 ,, corvettes

1 „ sloop ....

4 „ gunboats

o „ transports.

2 sailing vessels

Horse-power 1 Guns

150 900 630 20 240 440

6 78 36 6 8 10 24

20 men-of-war ....

2,280

168

The navy was manned, in 1869, by 2,248 sailors, the greater number of them volunteers, but a part raised by conscription. All seafaring men and inhabitants of seaports, between the ages of twenty-two and thirty- five, are enrolled on the lists of either the active fleet or the naval militia, and liable, by the law of 1866, to the maritime conscription. The numbers on the register amounted, in 1869, to above 60,000 men.

In order to use the vessels of the navy for peaceful as well as war- like purposes, they are attached to the postal service, and employed in the conveyance of mails and passengers. At the head of the navy is a secretary of state, called minister of marine and postal commu- nication, whose first duty, in times of peace, is to superintend the mail service.