قراءة كتاب The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis A History with Documents

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The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis
A History with Documents

The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis A History with Documents

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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swayed between these two possibilities, but if we follow it along the whole of its course, we shall see that Swedish Policy has always made a way for concessions. In the Union Committee of 1867 the Swedish members insisted on a Union Parliament as the stipulation of a joint Foreign Office; the Swedish majority in the Committe of 1898 abandoned that decision and contented itself with a joint Court of impeachment as a forum for appeal against the mutual Foreign Minister of the Union, but it insisted on maintaining the necessity of having mutual Consular representatives; during the present year, the King and the Riksdag have unanimously approved of the principles of a new arrangement with separate Consuls for Sweden and Norway. It is perhaps too soon to now judge between the lines followed by Swedish Union politicians, but in any case, it can scarcely be a matter of surprise that Swedish Policy has but slowly and gradually given up its claims. In order to preserve harmony, Sweden has been forced to do it, on   account of the responsibility she once undertook on behalf of the Union, but no direct national interests have influenced the concessions and the enticing reward — harmony within the Union, the prospect of getting Norway honestly to meet her half way — has been sufficiently uncertain, in fact, the above mentioned concessions have seemed to possess a remarkable faculty for drawing forward new claims.

2:1 Nansen (English edition). The same author writes (page 62): »Finally in 1903(!) the Swedish Government declared openly that the present arrangement was not in accordance with Norway’s just demands for equality in the Union.» How such a statement can be made is simply incomprehensible.

2:2 How the Norwegian Storthing, made up as it is, of large numbers of lawyers, has contributed to this, is well known to all.

2:3 On this account, it has especially been vindicated that the Act of Union plainly indicates a joint Foreign Policy, which is scarcely possible without a joint Foreign Administration; that the same Act of Union only acknowledges the Swedish Foreign Minister of State as the head of the Foreign Administration for the Union; that in the »Eidswold Constitution», at the commencement of the Union, the paragraph referring to the Norwegian Foreign Minister of State was simply ignored. This last inconvenient fact is interpreted by the modern Norwegian theory of State Law as implying, that the Norwegian Constitution has left the administration of Foreign affairs to the King personally, who, in his turn on the grounds of this authority has placed it in the hands of the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nansen (page 49 and following.) The artfulness of this legal construction becomes immediately obvious. It is exceedingly remarkable also to find that Norwegian parliamentarism can commit such a blasphemy towards the Constitution, that it has confered a position of importance on the King Himself.

3:1 The Norwegian Right Side (Conservative) has not either emphatically disputed the Swedish conception.

3:2 Illustrative of the Norwegian way of confusing the Swedish legal conception and the Swedish amendment programme in the Union question is an expression of Nansen (page 61). According to him »the Swedish government as late as 1891 appeared, as already mentioned, inclined to deny Norway every right of taking part in the administration of foreign affairs», while in 1893 the Swedish Government offered a joint Minister for Foreign Affairs for the Union. The state of the case was, that the Swedish Government in 1891 offered Norway increase of influence in Foreign affairs, but in motioning this offer the Swedish legal point of view was maintained, that the administration of Foreign (diplomatic) affairs for the Union by the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs was founded on legal right. Reflections arise of themselves.

4:1 Sweden has especially tried to annul the paragraph 25 of Norway’s fundamental law which limits the duty of its Union defence. According to this paragraph, the Yeomanry and other Norwegian troops, that cannot be reckoned as belonging to the line, may not be employed outside the boundaries of the Kingdom. This law has proved so much the more pernicous, as the Norwegians by their recruiting regulations have illoyally withdrawn from the Union-defence part of their fighting forces, by outrageously entering into the line a limited number only of the annual classes of recruits.

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

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