e very midst of the Norwegian
people[5:1], who to that time had stood unanimous towards the claim of a
mutual Foreign Minister of State for the Union. In the struggle for the
political ascendency chauvinistic strongwords became more and more rife.
The national sensitiveness, already considerable, became excited to the
utmost under the influence of the suggestive eloquence of BJOeRNSON and
other agitators. The suspiciousness disaffection towards Sweden
increased. The Swedish brethren were pointed at by BJOeRNSON as the only
enemy Norway had, and even in the schoolrooms and school-books their
(Swedish) hereditary enemy was spoken of with curses. Simultaneously the
"Norwegians of the Future" buried themselves deeper and deeper in the
study of "Ancient Glorious Norway". Imagination was fed on Norwegian
heroic Sagas and Viking exploits, and the ancient National Saint of
Norway, Olaf the Holy, was unearthed from his long-forgotten hiding place
for renewed worship[5:2].

This overwrought sentimental policy, of course, caused national pride and
all its requisite claims, to raise a cloud over Sweden and the Union, and
the essential principles in the Union Question became of less and less
importance. How totally void of essential principles the recent Norwegian
Union Policy has been, is most obvious in the matter of effacing the
Union Symbol from the mercantile flag having for a long period of years
played a dominating role in Norwegian party politics[6:1]. It became the
more and more hopeless task of Sweden and the Union King to maintain the
cause of the Union without support from the dominant left party in
Norway. The Norwegian radical party in their blind fanaticism were
scarcely capable of rational action with any feeling of real political
responsibility; the friendly attitude towards Russia as their friend in
need, of BJOeRNSON and other radicals, was quite sufficient proof of this.
It is true, that one party--the Norwegian Right Side--, for a long
time inclined to a more favourable view of the Union, has supported the
King in his efforts to oppose the dissolving of the Union, but in the
fight for the political supremacy, the power of nationalism over minds
has gradually undermined its position as a pillar of the Union, and at
the present period of violently agitated feeling, the party has almost
entirely vanished from the "national junction."

[Sidenote: _Sweden's later Union policy._]

During the process of this chauvini