sent He finds it unsuitable to sanction." And the
paragraph continues: "The resolution may not again on that occasion be
laid before the King by the members of the Storthing then assembled." By
this last mentioned prescription the Constitution has evidently meant to
protect the Norwegian King's liberty in the exercise of the legislative
powers which are his indisputable right.

My resolve, not to sanction a law providing for a separate Norwegian
Consular Service, can consequently not be considered to imply any
transgression whatever of the legislative power, which according to the
fundamental law is the King's right, not even, if the matter in question
happened to be an affair which concerned Norway alone. But on the grounds
of the valid Union agreement between Norway and Sweden, it was not only
My right, but also My duty as King of Norway to refuse My sanction, for
the dissolution of the existing identical Consular Office could only be
effected through Norway's consent to free and friendly negotiations
concerning agreements for altering the Union on the basis of full
equality between the United Kingdoms, to which not only the _Powers
Royal_, but also the Diet of Sweden had unanimously themselves agreed.
That such a respect to the demands of the existing Union should imply an
attack on Norway's independence and sovereignty, is so much the more
unfounded, as the fundamental law explicitly connects Norway's
independence with its Union with Sweden. Norway's King must ever hold in
sight the 1:st paragraph of its Constitution:

"The Kingdom of Norway is a free, self-dependant, integral and
independent Kingdom, united with Sweden under one King."

The statement made by the Council that My resolve, not to sanction the
Consular law, proposed by the Storthing, would have no legal validity, as
none of the members of the Cabinet had found themselves able to
countersign the Royal Decree supplies a supposition which I must declare
is in conflict with fundamental law. The question of the significance of
contrasignature according to Norwegian State law, is not a new question
brought up to day, but is older than the present Norwegian Constitution.
It was already solved at the Convention of Eidsvold. A proposal was then
made that Countersignature was requisite in order that the King's
commands should become valid, but was opposed on the grounds that it was
against the general principles of the Constitution for the division of
supreme