ed it was not compulsory for them to
give an opinion as to the suitability or desirability[21:2] of the
arrangement, or of the political importance that might be assigned to the
same. This limitation of the duty of the Committee is of importance in
order to understand the terms of its conclusions; it was meant simply to
describe the effect of the aforesaid arrangement under certain
circumstances and nothing more.

The Committee gave two alternatives; Norway should either have its own
consuls, subordinate, to a certain extent, to the Minister of Foreign
affairs, or a separate Consular Service, in which case, the consuls would
be entirely under Norwegian authority. As to the first of these
alternatives, the Norwegian members explain, that whichever way we look
at the arrangement, it would be at the outset in conflict with the spirit
of the Norwegian Constitution; a corps acting for the most part under
authority out of Norway, would, from an administrative point of view, be
an "anomaly". The Swedish members evidently ought not to confute the
Norwegian interpretation of the Constitution; they do not approve of it,
nor do they agree to it, though they declare that they see plainly the
advantages to be obtained, from an disciplinary point of view, by
continuing to allow the separate consuls to act under the administration
of the Minister for Foreign affairs.

The formal way in which the Committee acted naturally brought about very
imperfect results. The logical consequences of the issue being, for
instance, that the Minister for Foreign affairs was debarred from giving
instructions directly to the different consuls; his 'wishes' were first
to be communicated to the Norwegian Consular administration, on whom
rested the decision as to whether or not, the wishes of the Minister of
Foreign affairs should be complied with(!). And the Minister of Foreign
affairs, would not, of course, have any power to interfere disciplinary
when a consul compromised the relations of the United Kingdoms with
Foreign powers etc. etc. The Swedish members express their extreme doubts
on the critical points all through, and point out the necessity of an
extremely amicable co-operation between the Minister for Foreign affairs
and the Norwegian Consular Service, as the only guarantee against the
total disorganization of the administration for Foreign affairs; the
Norwegians tried to soothe their doubts by declaring that the Norwegian
Consular Service wo