bers of the
Committee certainly agreed upon founding the Union on the principle of
parity and equality, inasmuch as they proposed that the Foreign affairs
should be entrusted to the charge of a joint Foreign minister of
Norwegian or Swedish nationality. But at the same time the two fractions
wherein the Swedish members of the Committee were divided, proposed such
an arrangement of the constitutional responsibility not only for those
members of the separate Cabinet Councils of the countries, who at the
side of the Foreign Minister take part in the treatment of diplomatic
affairs, but also for the Foreign Minister himself, so that no member of
the Norwegian Committee could in this respect support any of the Swedish
schemes. In addition to the establishment of a joint Foreign Minister
office, all the Swedish members recommended an extension of the
constitutional community between the countries which no member of the
Norwegian Committee could second and lastly, the scheme for a separate
Foreign Office for each country which already was the expression of the
opinion prevailing among the Norwegian people, could not gain any support
from the Swedish side.

In this connection it should also be remembered that equally fruitless
proved the negotiations about the arrangement of the ministerial Cabinet
Council, carried on between the two Governments in 1885-86 and in
1890-91.

If thus the results of the above-mentioned efforts have been but little
encouraging, this can, in a still higher degree, be said to have been the
case with the negotiations just now terminated concerning questions
connected with the establishment of a separate Consular service for each
country. After these negotiations, brought about on Swedens initiative,
had led to a preliminary agreement presupposing a separate Consular
service for each country, subject to the home authority which each
country decided for itself, and after this agreement had been approved of
by the King and the Governments of the two countries in Joint Cabinet
Council on December 21, 1903, the matter, as is well known, fell through
owing to the so called bills of the same wording that were meant to
regulate the relations between the separate Consular services on the one
hand, and the Foreign Minister and the legations on the other hand. This
negative result was attributed to the circumstance that from the Swedish
side a number of demands were finally made and adhered to, which are
partly