s. "Directly
they have got the wedge fixed into the small end", wrote in 1892
President HANS FORSSELL, "they will try to persuade us that there will be
no danger in letting them drive it in a bit". Above all they considered
that a Norwegian Consular Service would by degrees disorganize the
administration of the Foreign Office, and on the grounds of the
dominating role interests of economy play in the Foreign politics of our
day, it would by degrees expand into a regular Norwegian Foreign Office.

[Sidenote: _Want of Union motives for Consular reform._]

The chief characteristic of this programme is the total absence of any
motive for it from a Union point of view. Modern Norwegian Nationalism
has only really thought of Sweden and Norway, but not of the Union and
its claims. Whenever Sweden has ventured to advocate the cause of the
Union, Norway has begun to talk of the interests of Sweden. If, at any
time, the claims of the Union have been discussed in Norway, they have
usually been identical with those of Norway. The interests of the Union
demanded that Norway, without further parley, got what its national
sensitive feeling was pleased to decree as the Sovereign Norway's right.
That is about the gist of the matter. The Norwegian policy has by degrees
become blind to the fact, that the interests of the Union ought to demand
a subordination of the inclination to decide arbitrarily on points
touching the Union, both for the sake of Sweden and--of Norway.

[Sidenote: _Misinterpretation of the King's opposition._]

When therefore the King, in the interests of _the Union_, at first
opposed both the Consular reform itself and the manner of carrying it
out, they did not see the King of Norway, or the King of the Union, only
the King of Sweden, the veto of the King of Norway was called the Swedish
veto against the rightful claims of Norway. This dishonest doctrine has
gradually poisoned the minds of the people of Norway, and it is this,
that has brought about the rupture of the Union.

[Sidenote: _The raising of the Consular question in 1891._]

Under strong protest from the Norwegian Right Side (Conservative), which
at that time looked upon a separate Consular Service under a mutual
diplomatic administration as introducing something hitherto unheard of in
the annals of history, the consular question was brought to the decision
by the Norwegian Left Side. By an order of the Storthing, the method was
established: the Consul