The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis Part 1

The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis.

by Karl Nordlund.

I.

[Sidenote: _The object of the Union dispute._]

Not till the present day has the Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis presented itself in the eyes of Europe in a thoroughly acute phase. Its origin, in reality, dates as far back as the foundation of the Union itself.

[Sidenote: _The efforts to give Norway a better position in the Union._]

The original cause of the agitating union disputes has been that Sweden, from the very commencement of the Union, has internationally borne the responsibility for the same, in other words, conducted the political affairs of both Kingdoms. The inequality produced hereby, the Norwegians on their part have striven to efface. Sweden has also for a long time shown herself willing to establish full equality in the Union, at the same time that she has accommodated herself to Norway in questions of detail. As far back as 1835 it was acknowledged, on the part of Sweden, that Norway's position in the Union was not in accordance with the claims of equity. Thus by a Royal Decree that year the Norwegian Minister of State at Stockholm was admitted into the Swedish so-called Ministerial Council to take part in foreign matters which concerned Norway. In 1839 the first great Union-Committee was formed, and both in this one, and two later--the last 1895-98--Norway was offered from the Swedish side complete equality in the Union on certain conditions. Added to this Sweden has on several occasions granted partial concessions. Some have been accepted by Norway--as for instance the law pa.s.sed in 1844 concerning equality in Government Symbols etc. etc.--others again were refused--as the offer in 1885 and 1891 of increased influence in the administration of Foreign affairs. If offers of equality worded in more general terms are added--as in 1893 and during the present year--, NANSEN'S characterising Sweden's Union policy as 90 years' labour to procure a supremacy for Sweden,--ought to appear in its true colours[2:1].

[Sidenote: _Unauthorized accusations against Sweden for endeavouring to gain the supremacy._]

The accusations against Sweden for endeavouring to acquire the supremacy have, time after time, arisen from a mixture of various matters, partly the different conceptions of the legal character of the existing Union, partly the different programmes for the reformation of the Union.

Owing to the very indistinct and confused wording in the legal doc.u.ments of the Act of Union the Swedish and Norwegian conceptions of the Union itself have finally become so antagonistic to each other, that the unionistic transactions have, in an excessive degree, taken the character of a continual judicial process, and the real questions have been more or less ignored[2:2]. Swedish Policy on its part has always maintained that Sweden's supremacy in the Union is based on legal grounds. It has especially insisted that the administration of Foreign affairs was, from the first, placed in Sweden's hands[2:3], and this Swedish standpoint has also been acknowledged as the right one by the most eminent of Norwegian writers on State law[3:1]. But of late those on the Norwegian Left Side have made stronger and stronger efforts to prove, that the order existed on no legal grounds, that Norway, as a Sovereign Kingdom, had the right, for instance, to create an entire Foreign Office of its own. And under this influence the Norwegian sensitiveness has in Sweden's defence of her conception of Union Law persisted more and more in seeing insulting designs of supremacy.

Meanwhile future prospects and reform programmes have had little to do with the Swedish conception of the legal character of the Union. The most extreme representatives of the so-called supremacy partizans--to mention one, the late professor OSCAR ALIN--have on different occasions maintained reform programmes, built on the principle of perfect equality within the Union, and it must be a.s.serted that _no Swedish political party in recent times has refused perfect equality to Norway_[3:2].

[Sidenote: _The different programmes of Sweden and Norway for reforming the Union._]

That the result seems to become the rupture of the Union, and not the reorganization of the same has depended on more and more insurmountable oppositions in opinions concerning _the manner_ and _the aim_ for a reform.

Sweden has, as a rule, preferred the _entire_ reorganization, Norway the _partial_--the consequence being, for instance, the struggles in the so-called Stadtholder disputes in the sixties of the last century. Sweden has held her standpoint, especially as she has considered it to the interest of the Union to insist on creating perfect equality by concessions also from Norway, and it seemed that these demands could not gain sufficient consideration unless the reorganization was complete[4:1].

Sweden has furthermore insisted on _negotiations_ and _agreements_, as the natural road to reform; how Norway has more and more allowed herself to take matters into her own hands, shall now be more clearly explained.

Above all, however, the differences of opinion respecting the _aim_ of the reform have become more and more p.r.o.nounced. Sweden has adhered to a Union, which outworldly represents a perfect unity, and tried to create a safe and secure Union. Norway has, by degrees, in her ever increasing overwrought sensitiveness, developed her reform programme towards a purely personal union, behind which the rupture of the Union has stood as the main object in view.

The connection of the Norwegian Union with the inner party struggles in Norway, has had a disastrous effect on the development of the Norwegian programme, especially since 1885.

Through the Const.i.tutional Crisis in 1884, when the Royal Powers were forced--practically if not legally--to capitulate in essentials to the orthodox parliamentarism, the Norwegian party champions became in need of new programmes upon which to fling themselves. It was then, that the Norwegian radicals through the demand for their own Minister of State for Foreign Affairs cast a firebrand into the very midst of the Norwegian people[5:1], who to that time had stood unanimous towards the claim of a mutual Foreign Minister of State for the Union. In the struggle for the political ascendency chauvinistic strongwords became more and more rife.

The national sensitiveness, already considerable, became excited to the utmost under the influence of the suggestive eloquence of BJoRNSON and other agitators. The suspiciousness disaffection towards Sweden increased. The Swedish brethren were pointed at by BJoRNSON as the only enemy Norway had, and even in the schoolrooms and school-books their (Swedish) hereditary enemy was spoken of with curses. Simultaneously the Norwegians of the Future buried themselves deeper and deeper in the study of Ancient Glorious Norway. Imagination was fed on Norwegian heroic Sagas and Viking exploits, and the ancient National Saint of Norway, Olaf the Holy, was unearthed from his long-forgotten hiding place for renewed worship[5:2].

This overwrought sentimental policy, of course, caused national pride and all its requisite claims, to raise a cloud over Sweden and the Union, and the essential principles in the Union Question became of less and less importance. How totally void of essential principles the recent Norwegian Union Policy has been, is most obvious in the matter of effacing the Union Symbol from the mercantile flag having for a long period of years played a dominating role in Norwegian party politics[6:1]. It became the more and more hopeless task of Sweden and the Union King to maintain the cause of the Union without support from the dominant left party in Norway. The Norwegian radical party in their blind fanaticism were scarcely capable of rational action with any feeling of real political responsibility; the friendly att.i.tude towards Russia as their friend in need, of BJoRNSON and other radicals, was quite sufficient proof of this.

It is true, that one party--the Norwegian Right Side--, for a long time inclined to a more favourable view of the Union, has supported the King in his efforts to oppose the dissolving of the Union, but in the fight for the political supremacy, the power of nationalism over minds has gradually undermined its position as a pillar of the Union, and at the present period of violently agitated feeling, the party has almost entirely vanished from the national junction.

[Sidenote: _Sweden's later Union policy._]

During the process of this chauvinistic hysteria, Swedish politicians have naturally had an exceedingly delicate problem to solve. On one point opinion in Sweden has been unanimous. It has emphatically refused to accept a mere personal Union as a solution of the question. This on two grounds: one for the Union, the other for the Nation. The interests of the Union imperatively demanded outward unity, in order that the Union might be able to fulfil its purpose preserving security to the Scandinavian Peninsula in relation to Foreign powers. National interest saw in a personal union, and generally in every more radical rupture of the bonds of the Union, a risk that the influence of Sweden would thereby become unduly lessened. For if Sovereign power became the only essential bond of Union, there would be the risk of the balance of power drifting into the hands of the Storthing (especially after the events of 1884 when the Sovereign power of the King was weakened), a risk that has at the present conjuncture of affairs already made itself felt.

But if Sweden has thus been unanimous in demanding a joint administration of Foreign affairs, it might be found within the range of possibilities, for the sake of peace and quietness, to grant concessions in certain matters, which in reality from an union point of view seemed both unnecessary and undesirable. They may have complain as much as they like of the Norwegian national obstinacy, of their sickly fears of any sort of _confusion_; their inability to comprehend the requirements of the Union; it remained, however, a fact, that it was necessary to take into account, and indeed, it was a duty to respect it to a certain extent, as it originated in no slight degree from feelings fed by the subordinate position Norway had always held in years gone by. Swedish policy had thus to face two alternatives, either firmly and inexorably to insist on the Swedish demands for the amendment of the Union, conscious that they were in the interests of the Union, and like wise the real interest of Norway; or make a compromise, be contented with a partially disorganized Union, which by its bonds outwardly at least, preserved the appearance of the Scandinavian Peninsula's unity to Europe. The currents of the Union Policy in Sweden have 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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 Const.i.tution, 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution, 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] Ill.u.s.trative 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 cla.s.ses 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 BJoRNSON.

[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.

[Sidenote: _The Consul question._]

The Consular Question is a red thread running through the history of the Union struggles during the last fourteen years--

[Sidenote: _The change in the Swedish Const.i.tution 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?

[Sidenote: _Norway's att.i.tude to the same._]

By the amendment of the Swedish Const.i.tution, 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 Const.i.tutional 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 circ.u.mstances were supposed to be more impartially treated, so that even Norway's lawful interests could receive due attention. But by the amendment of the Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 const.i.tutional 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 const.i.tutional 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.

[Sidenote: _The Norwegian radicals' method of taking matters into their hands._]

The Swedish offer being thus refused, the Norwegian Union politics in 1891 took a new turn. The road was already pointed out by the veteran leader of the Left Side (separatists) JOHAN SVERDRUP; it was indicated to take matters into our own hands. The system was founded on the Norwegian Left Side State-law theory, according to which Norway, as a Sovereign state, was ent.i.tled to its own Minister for Foreign Affairs, its own diplomatic representatives and consuls, all of which was proved with much craft by the Const.i.tution of Norway and the Act of Union between Sweden and Norway. The right to one and all to which Norway, as a Sovereign power, was ent.i.tled, should now be realized, independently and boldly, without consulting Sweden. By Royal Decree, the Storting having granted the means, a Norwegian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Norwegian Diplomatic Representatives and consuls should be appointed without delay in the Norwegian Council. Thus the lines of the future politics of Norway were fixed by the Separatists[10:1].

It is obvious, that the notion of the one Kingdom in a Union being able, of its own accord without consulting the other Kingdom, to alter and dissolve the bonds of Union, is theoretically inimical to the Union itself, and in fact shows enormous disloyalty to the other half of the Union. A _Union_ policy of this sort is, of course, in spirit, completely revolutionary, and at the outset has no place within the Union.

Nevertheless it has been followed under continued official protestations of fidelity to the Union--the last speech of this sort was heard a short time ago, when the well known road was fully marked out, right away to the object so long hovering in view. This is not the only piece of duplicity in Norwegian Union policy of whech Sweden has had to complain.