It is now these resolutions which are not called revolutionary in Norway. They are, on the contrary, perfectly legal[60:7]!
The King was dethroned, because, supported by rights given by the Constitution, he refused to sanction a resolution in conflict with the principles of the Union, to which Norway, according to the first paragraph of her Constitution, is bound.
The Union with Sweden was declared dissolved without reference to Sweden, or observation of the terms in which the slightest change in the Constitution and the Act of Union must be carried out[61:1]. And this last resolution was carried in spite of the Constitutional prescription that changes in the same must not come in strife with the principles of State law, to which, if ever, the Union with Sweden belongs; as the freedom and independence of Norway, according to the first paragraph of the Constitution, are inseparably connected with this Union[61:2].
As aforementioned, all this is not revolution in Norway. Conceptions of laws and rights have long shown themselves in strange lights in that country.
Protestations of Sweden and the Union King. On June 9th Sweden declared her protest against the Norwegian revolution. In the Cabinet Council to which the Swedish Chambers were summoned to meet in on Extraordinary session[61:3], the Prime Minister strongly emphasised the fact that the Norwegian Storthing’s proceedings had deeply violated Sweden’s rights.
The following day, June 10th, King Oscar issued his protest in an address to the Norwegian Storthing[62:1]. In clear and convincing terms the King maintains his formal legal right to form his resolution in opposition to the Cabinet’s opinion. And he, as forcibly, maintains that it was in the capacity of the chief representative of the Union that he had considered it his duty to refuse his sanction to the Consular law. As Union-King, he emphasizes his right and prerogative, even in opposition to Norwegian public opinion in general, to maintain the principles of the Union, and he finally refers to the decisions of himself and Sweden »if Norway’s attack on the existing Union should lead to its legal dissolution».
Address of the Storthing 19th June 1905. The reply to this address of the King was an address[62:2] from the Storthing on June 19th formally to His Majesty the King, but in reality to the Swedish nation. In this it is explained that the Norwegian people entertain no feelings of dislike or ill-will to the Swedish people, and appeals to the Swedish State powers to promote a peaceful agreement on both sides. The Storthing addressed this appeal to the people who by their magnanimity and chivalry had won such a prominent place in the ranks of Nations.
The Swedish nation had good cause for thinking that it might have received this compliment a little sooner, instead of the overwhelming mass of infamous accusations which it had formerly had to accept with a good grace. And above all, it is their opinion that if Norway had formerly adjusted its actions in accordance with their present ideas of the Swedish nation, the present situation would now have been different in all respects.
The document of the 19:th June contains also one detail, which has since, step by step, been forced to the front by the Norwegian agitation, and therefore deserves its separate explanation. This said that the Swedish government on the 25:th April had emphatically refused to resume negotiations, with the dissolution of the union as an alternative, in case unity on the new forms of the union could not be arrived at, and on this account, from Norway’s side they have tried to cast the blame on Sweden for the revolution of June 7:th under the pretext that Sweden had already refused settlement by negotiation. What are the real conditions?
In the Norwegian Government’s proposal of the 17:th April negotiations are firmly refused, before the Consular question has been settled. Therefore Norway has never proposed negotiations respecting the situation which followed upon the 27:th May, when the King exercised his veto against the Consular law. Furthermore, attention must be drawn to the Norwegian government’s wording of the presuppositions for an eventual negotiation. It should be carried on »on an entirely free basis with full recognition of the Sovereignty of each country without any reservation or restriction whatever», and among other matters, it was stipulated, that, if the negotiations fell through, each Kingdom should be able to decide, of its own accord, »the future form of its national existence.» Thus the Swedish government was to accept in advance the Norwegian Radicals legal conception of the Union, driven, to it by the contingency that if Norway did not get her will in the matter, she would break out, on her own accord, of the Union. It is manifestly against this method of negotiating matters, with its legal grounds and its premature threat to rupture the Union on Norway’s side, that the Swedish Prime Minister appeals, when he speaks of a presupposition for negotiations on the Norwegian side »as incompatible with the Union and the Act of Union.» The Prime Minister can never have intended to contest the absurdity, that the Union cannot legally be dissolved, so that it was not on that account that he refused to negotiate.