h members insisted on a Union
Parliament as the stipulation of a joint Foreign Office; the Swedish
majority in the Committe of 1898 abandoned that decision and contented
itself with a joint Court of impeachment as a forum for appeal against
the mutual Foreign Minister of the Union, but it insisted on maintaining
the necessity of having mutual Consular representatives; during the
present year, the King and the Riksdag have unanimously approved of the
principles of a new arrangement with separate Consuls for Sweden and
Norway. It is perhaps too soon to now judge between the lines followed by
Swedish Union politicians, but in any case, it can scarcely be a matter
of surprise that Swedish Policy has but slowly and gradually given up its
claims. In order to preserve harmony, Sweden has been forced to do it, on
account of the responsibility she once undertook on behalf of the Union,
but no direct national interests have influenced the concessions and the
enticing reward--harmony within the Union, the prospect of getting
Norway honestly to meet her half way--has been sufficiently uncertain,
in fact, the above mentioned concessions have seemed to possess a
remarkable faculty for drawing forward new claims.

FOOTNOTES:

[2:1] NANSEN (English edition). The same author writes (page 62):
"Finally in 1903(!) the Swedish Government declared openly that the
present arrangement was not in accordance with Norway's just demands for
equality in the Union." How such a statement can be made is simply
incomprehensible.

[2:2] How the Norwegian Storthing, made up as it is, of large numbers of
lawyers, has contributed to this, is well known to all.

[2:3] On this account, it has especially been vindicated that the Act of
Union plainly indicates a joint Foreign Policy, which is scarcely
possible without a joint Foreign Administration; that the same Act of
Union only acknowledges the Swedish Foreign Minister of State as the head
of the Foreign Administration for the Union; that in the "Eidswold
Constitution", at the commencement of the Union, the paragraph referring
to the Norwegian Foreign Minister of State was simply ignored. This last
inconvenient fact is interpreted by the modern Norwegian theory of State
Law as implying, that the Norwegian Constitution has left the
administration of Foreign affairs to the King personally, who, in his
turn on the grounds of this authority has placed it in the hands of the
Swedish Minister of Foreign Af