New 12% Cabinet

Small storekeepers, craftsmen and farmers are the people who vote for Carl Gustaf Ekman and his People's Party. He used to be the village blacksmith of Munktorp in drowsy Vastmanland. As he shod horses he talked Temperance. After a while he began to write with devout Lutheran fervor against what Englishmen call brandy, Frenchmen eau-de-vie, Swedes Aquavit. Five years before the War, Munktorp's literary blacksmith took the road to greatness, accepted a call to Eskilstuna, where the owner of the Eskilstunakurirers made him Editor.

Today Carl Gustaf Ekman is Grand Master of the Swedish Good Templars (Prohibitionists), foes of the famed "Bratt System" by which Swedes are allowed to buy driblets of liquor under an elaborately regulated system of permits at Government stores (TIME, Aug. 27, 1928). Last week tall King Gustaf V, still in deepest mourning for his late Queen, called to the Prime Ministry his Great Templar.

There is no real majority in the Andra Kammaren (Lower House) at Stockholm, any more than there is one in the Chamber of Deputies at Paris. But Swedes are naturally less prone to sudden topplings down of Governments than Frenchmen. The previous Cabinet (Conservative) of Admiral Arvid Lindman, who was forced out fortnight ago (TIME, June 9), had remained in office for 20 months although out of 230 deputies in the Andra Kammaren only 73 are Conservative.

Stranger still is the fact that the Great Templar, who was called by King Gustaf last week, leads only 28 deputies--or a bare 12% of the house. He has, however, a great & good friend: Per Albin Hansson, leader of the 90 Social Democrats. Although they are numerically much the largest party, they cannot form their own Cabinet because a whole pack of fractional factions would join with the Conservatives to oust a Socialist Government. In these peculiar circumstances last week Carl Gustaf Ekman seemed to be the best tail King Gustaf could have chosen to wag the Swedish dog. Irt 1926, in similar circumstances, His Majesty made the Great Templar Prime Minister for the first time, and Tail Ekman then wagged Sweden very satisfactorily until 1928, when he was succeeded by Admiral Lindman whom he now succeeds.

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