Norway’s Persistent Agitation

The whole dispute over separate foreign consulates seemed designed to further separation of the two peoples.

Continuing Norway Establishes Independence,
with a selection from Norway by Henry Seton-Karr. This selection is presented in 4 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Norway Establishes Independence.

Time: 1905

There is no need to describe in detail the various phases of the long, wearisome, and futile attempt of the two countries to come to an understanding on the consular question. It has continued from February, 1891, when King Oscar, in his speech from the throne, announced to the Storthing that he was about to lay before it and the Riksdag a project providing for the discussion, in a composite Council of State, of all questions relating to their common affairs, to the severing of the Union by the Storthing’s manifesto of June 6, 1905. One thing, however, is quite certain. While, from the outset, the King and the Riksdag, with every intention of being fair to Norway, were working for the maintenance of the Union, the Storthing was really using the consulate question as the best expedient at hand for dissolving it. Herr Raeder, himself a Norwegian, aptly says:

No sensible man could very well deny that politics lay at the bottom of the whole consulate squabble, inasmuch as the economical reasons alleged for a complete separation . . . were so inadequate that they could not possibly be impressed upon the understanding of the masses except by persistent agitation.”

Finally, the Storthing, in direct contravention of the Act of Union, which enjoins that all matters concerning both kingdoms shall be discussed in a composite Council of State, passed in 1892 a resolution abolishing the common consular system without consulting the Swedish Council of State at all; whereupon the King exercised his constitutional prerogative and interposed his veto. The Riksdag, while supporting the King on purely unional grounds, expressed its willing ness to reconsider the whole question of the Foreign Office and diplomacy of the united kingdoms, including the consular question; and on June 5, 1895, Norway consented to negotiate with Sweden on the subject. The result was the formation of a Union Commission to examine and report upon all the points in dispute. The report of this committee was read in the composite Council of State on October 21, 1898. The Norwegian Government had previously declared that a prolongation of the negotiations would be useless unless they were continued on the lines of a separate Foreign Office for each kingdom; to which the Swedish Council of State objected that separate organs for each kingdom in the department of foreign affairs involved a principle erroneous in theory and unworkable in practice. At the same time it expressed its readiness to resume the negotiations on the basis of a continuance of a common Foreign Office and consular system. To this the Norwegians would not agree; and the Commission was therefore dissolved.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lagerheim, a second Union Commission was formed, to consider the advisability of a separate consular system for each of the united kingdoms, with the retention of a common diplomatic representation. The negotiations were conducted at Stockholm from October, 1902, to January, 1903, and were continued at Christiania during February and March, 1903. In their anxiety to meet the wishes of the Norwegians, the Swedish commissioners advised a composition on the following bases: (1) separate consular systems for Sweden and Norway, the consuls for each kingdom to be under the jurisdiction of the authorities appointed by the home Government in each case; (2) the relations of the separate consuls to the Minister of Foreign Affairs to be regulated by laws of a like tenor, laws unalterable and unrepeatable except with the consent of the authorities of both countries. The Swedish negotiators recognized, at the same time, that the actual position of the Minister of Foreign Affairs did not correspond with Norway’s just claims to equality within the Union; and they expressed the wish to take this question also into consideration. But the Norwegians declined further negotiations; and the Commission finally came to the conclusion that the views of the two countries were so divergent that, for the present, an agreement was unattainable. Thus this second Commission also proved abortive.

In the light of subsequent events it seems pretty clear that the Norwegian Government had by this time arrived at the conclusion that the whole was better than a part; in other words, that the dissolution of the Union by a bold coup d’etat would be more profitable, and perhaps more dignified, than negotiations resulting, at the best, in concessions of a more or less conditional character on the part of Sweden. Anyhow, the subsequent policy of the Storthing is intelligible only on this hypothesis. At the meeting of the Norwegian Council of State on April 5, 1905, the Ministry presented the Storthing’s resolution for the erection of a separate consular service for Norway for the approval of the Crown; and the Prince Regent promptly vetoed it on the ground that the question was a common one, and could therefore only be settled constitutionally by an agreement with the confederated state of Sweden. On May 27th, when King Oscar had resumed power, the Norwegian Government presented their resolution anew; and again it was vetoed, for the same reason as before. The Norwegian Ministry thereupon tendered their resignation. The King refused to accept it on the ground that no other Government could be formed.

The crisis had now become acute. The Norwegians themselves put an end to it by an act which can only be described as revolutionary. On June 6th, the Storthing, unanimously and without debate, resolved, on the motion of its President, that, inasmuch as the Ministry had resigned and his Majesty had declared himself unable to provide the country with an administration, therefore the constitutional monarchy had ceased to exercise its functions. The Storthing thereupon empowered the retiring Ministry to exercise provisionally the authority heretofore delegated to the King, and declared the union with Sweden to be dissolved, because the King had ceased to act as King of Norway. The Storthing at the same time unanimously adopted an address to the King, informing him of what had been done and inviting him to cooperate with them in forming a settled government by permitting a prince of his royal house to sit upon the Norwegian throne. The absurdity of inviting a monarch whom they had just dethroned to assist them to repeal the established constitutional order of succession, which he had solemnly sworn to uphold, does not appear to have occurred to the Norwegians; but their subsequent acts demonstrated that the breach was meant to be final. The unional flag was hauled down, and a national flag, minus the emblem of the Union, was hoisted in its place; the names of the King and the members of the royal family were expunged from the prayer-books; and a Minister of Foreign Affairs for Norway was appointed.

Henry Seton-Karr begins here. Bjornstjerne Bjornson begins here.

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