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.

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 passed 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 colours2:1.

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 documents 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 ignored2:2. 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 hands2:3, and this Swedish standpoint has also been acknowledged as the right one by the most eminent of Norwegian writers on State law3:1. 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 asserted that no Swedish political party in recent times has refused perfect equality to Norway3:2.

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 complete4:1.

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 pronounced. 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 Constitutional Crisis in 1884, when the Royal Powers were forced — practically if not legally — to capitulate in essentials to the orthodox parliamentarism, the Nor wegian 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 people5:1, 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 BjÖrnson and other agitators. The suspiciousness disaffection towards Sweden increased. The Swedish brethren were pointed at by BjÖrnson 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 worship5:2.

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 rÔle in Norwegian party politics6:1. 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 attitude towards Russia as their friend in need, of BjÖrnson 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.»

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.