[5:1] Mr Hagerup also affirmed openly in the Storthing of 1904 that the Union question had in quite too high a degree come to be regarded by the Norwegian parties as a workshop of weapons for elections campaigns.
[5:2] We get a glimpse of this romance, in the midst of the ultra modern »glorious» revolution. At a large meeting at Hamar it was decreed, that the new King should bear a name after one on the ancient Kings of Norway. In a festival number of a »Vordens Gang» in honour of the revolution we find printed a »Psalm on Olaf’s Day» written by Björnson.
[6:1] That Norway in carrying out the law (1899) respecting the flag, broke an agreement with Sweden made in 1844, was of course only in conformity with everything else.
II.
The Consul question. The Consular Question is a red thread running through the history of the Union struggles during the last fourteen years—
The change in the Swedish Constitution of 1885. The Norwegians on their part in attempting to defend the way in which the Left Side started the Union Policy in the beginning of 1890, always allude to what happened in Sweden in 1885[8:1].
What was it then that happened in 1885?
Norway’s attitude to the same. By the amendment of the Swedish Constitution, the Prime Minister was also in the Ministerial Council (for Foreign affairs), so that the Council instead of having only two members, ever after had three, the object being to guarantee that the Cabinet Council should be more fully represented in they the in administration of Foreign affairs. Now, as previously mentioned, by a Royal Decree in 1835 the Norwegian Prime Minister at Stockholm was admitted into the Ministerial Council when foreign affairs affecting the two Kingdoms were negotiated. Thus Norway by the proposed Constitutional amendment was supposed to occupy a somewhat more unfavourable position than formerly. But Sweden immediately offers a more extended representation in the Council for Foreign affairs, which offer, however, is, for some inexplicable reason, refused by Norway on formal grounds. In the year 1891 this offer was renewed, but then the majority on the Left Side of the Storthing finds a very excellent reason for refusing the proposition, by pointing out, that the Swedish Council in motioning towards the proposed amendment in the Act of Union (not in the proposed paragraph itself) maintains the stand-point that Sweden’s leadership in the administration of Foreign affairs is founded on legal right[9:1].
But something else is said to have happened in 1885, which was not discovered by the Norwegian side till several years later, and which, being exposed by the Norwegian agitation in these days, offers to we Swedes the delights of novelty. Formerly foreign affairs were supposed to be administered chiefly by the Swedish King personally, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs is said to have stood in a more personal relation to the King. Foreign Affairs under such circumstances were supposed to be more impartially treated, so that even Norway’s lawful interests could receive due attention. But by the amendment of the Constitution of 1885 the Swedish Foreign Minister would be entirely subservient to Swedish Parliamentarism, which made the employment of the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, in the protection of Norwegian interests, still more dissatisfactory for Norway than formerly. This is pretended to have become the source of the last twenty year’s Union struggle[9:2]. Now the state of the case is this, the Foreign Minister’s parliamentary responsibility has not been increased by the amendment of the Constitution in 1885. Formerly he was — just as he is now — responsible, as reporter, in the first place for all resolutions in Foreign affairs. The point that was formally confirmed by law in 1885 was, that the Minister for Foreign Affairs should also prepare matters concerning foreign affairs. According to the older version of the paragraph that was altered that year (1885), the King was invested with greater rights in reference to that side of the administration of foreign affairs. Thus the amendment of the Constitution in 1885 only effected that the actual influence of the Minister for Foreign Affairs on Sweden’s foreign policy was brought into harmony with the formal responsibility he held in all cases for Sweden’s Foreign policy. It may be added that this constitutional amendment only confirmed the old practice, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs was formerly regularly employed to prepare matters concerning foreign affairs, and that his previous employment in the preparation of foreign affairs was naturally carried out under observation of the responsibility in which he stood for the resolutions taken, and was not inspired by any mysterious personal relations to the King. The whole of this Norwegian notion of the fatal influence on the Union in this constitutional amendment, is, in fact, nothing but a manufactured theory containing no real grounds whatsoever.
Now it must be observed that Norway had formerly no regular parliamentary control over foreign affairs, but the Swedish offer of 1891 was just intended to give the Norwegian Storthing the right to this control, to be exercised under the same conditions as those in the Swedish Diet. But the Storthing refused (as previously mentioned) the Swedish offer; it preferred to keep the quarrel alive, and in order to do this, it was necessary to be able to refer to Swedish oppression.