o the Swedish government
the Norwegian gouvernment proposal for identical laws.

[Sidenote: _The problem of the relations of the Minister of Foreign
affairs to the Consular service._]

It was clear that the chief point of the question should concern the real
authority to be exercised by the Minister for Foreign affairs over the
Consuls in diplomatic matters. It must necessarily be the chief interest
of the Swedish government to insure a guarantee for this. It was partly a
purely practical matter, that the Minister for Foreign affairs, who was
responsible for the relations of both Kingdoms to Foreign powers, should
be able to exercise an efficient control over all matters in any way
connected with the Diplomatic service. And it was also necessary to
hinder the Norwegian Consular service, in its progressive development,
from acting in the direction of a division of the Foreign administration
within the Union.

The practical necessity of strict co-operation between the Foreign
Service and the Consular Service had previously been acknowledged in
Norway on certain sides. It may thus be of interest to recall the strong
efforts that were made by the Norwegian majority in the latest Union
Committee, to emphasize the importance of having the consuls under the
direct control of the Minister for Foreign affairs and Envoys in all
matters which are likely to assume a diplomatic character. The same
conclusions may also be drawn from the plan of some Norwegians to solve
the Consular question, by arranging for the separation of the mercantile
part of the joint Consular service, while the diplomatic part remained
intact[30:1].

But the problem now presented a somewhat different aspect from the one
it had for the Norwegian Majority of the last Union Committee, for it had
postulated a Union Minister of Foreign affairs. And, undoubtedly, a
deeper penetration into questions it included, had made clearly manifest
the impossibility of drawing a distinct line between the diplomatic and
mercantile functions of the Consuls. The question, for instance, now
arose, as to whether a Norwegian civil official, in certain cases, would
be subordinate to a Swedish Minister. In the face of this problem, the
Norwegians on their part lost sight of the real points at issue in a most
remarkable way. In the Consular Committee's deliberations, Norwegian
opinion on the question of subordination, that it would be an "anomaly",
in conflict with the spirit of th