However, the report of the committee was thrown out by eighty-eight votes against eighty-three.
Herr Hedin got his way. He has always been the consistent opposer of the active friends of peace; and this time he has besides won the gratitude even of our Government organ, Nya Dagligt Allehanda, which calls his speech glittering; meaning that upon this resolution "there was no need to waste many words," and continues thus:—
"The resolution is worthy of notice, because it shows the return of the Chamber to a sounder perception of this question. It seems at last to recognise the extravagance of the expectation certain fanatics entertain of bringing about a lasting peace by so apparently simple a means as a tribunal of arbitration. We have indeed, as Herr Hedin reminded us, now had experience ourselves of how unsatisfactory this can be; and it certainly appears that they must be lacking in common sense who would question the justice of the Foreign Minister's reminder, that arbitration cannot be appealed to when a nation's political freedom or independence is touched by the issue."
I may here beg leave to calm the ruffled feelings of the honourable Government organ by bringing to remembrance the lesson, otherwise applicable also, which our dismembered sister-land on the other side of the Sound offers us.
At the London Conference in 1864, the representative of England, Lord Russell, referred to the decision arrived at by the Paris Congress in 1856, that States which had any serious dispute should appeal to the mediation of a friendly power before taking to arms. In harmony with this the British plenipotentiary proposed that the question, whether the boundary line should be drawn between the lines of Aabenraa-Tœnder, on the one side, or Dannewerke-Sli on the other, should be decided by arbitration. Prussia and Austria consented to accept the mediation of a neutral power; but Denmark replied to the proposition with a distinct refusal. In the same way Denmark refused the proposal made first by Prussia, and later by France, that a means of deciding the boundary should be sought in a plebiscite of the people in Sleswick.
Denmark trusted too much upon might and too little upon right. Otherwise Sleswick had still been Danish.
If the axiom be correct, that disputes which affect the existence and independence of nations ought not to be submitted for solution to arbitration, it is of so much the greater moment to try to get international complications settled in this way, because they may swell up into questions of the kind first named; since in any case this means could be adopted as a last resource in time of need. History knows of no example of the destruction of a free nation by the impartial judgment of arbitration.
Now it may well appear honourable on the part of the free nations of the Scandinavian peninsula that they should openly show to the whole world that they are prepared (in full harmony with King Oscar II.'s pacific expressions in the speech from the throne to the Riksdag and the Storting in 1890), for their own part, in all international circumstances to substitute justice for brute force, and this without compromising and meaningless limitations. In the Swedish arbitration resolution, as well as in the Norse, lies the road certainly to efficiently carrying out the neutral policy so strongly emphasized in the speech from the throne. Besides the public gain, which a favourable result in both Chambers would have been, a unanimous co-operation in this cause would in a great degree have facilitated the solving of the important Question of the Union (Unionelle Tvistemaal).
The last named consideration will indeed claim more attention as the consequences of the divergent decisions of the Storting and the Riksdag develop themselves. That these consequences will be scattering, rather than uniting, the friends of peace in both lands must keep in view; and must look out, in time, for means to soothe them, as long as they continue.