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 entered the cabinet at a later date, were heavily fined. The excitement in the country rose to feverish anxiety. Rumours of all kinds were afloat, and it was generally believed that the king would attempt a coup d’état. Fortunately the king after some hesitation issued (11th March 1884) an order in council announcing that the judgment of the supreme court would be carried into effect, and Selmer was then called upon to resign his position as

prime minister. King Oscar, however, in his declaration upheld the constitutional prerogative of the crown, which, he maintained, was not impaired by the judgment of the Rigsret. The following month the king, regardless of the large liberal majority in the Storthing, asked Schweigaard, one of the late ministers, whose punishment consisted in a fine, to form a ministry, and the so-called “April ministry” was then appointed, but sent in its resignation in the following month. Professor Broch, a former minister, next failed to form a ministry, and the king was at last compelled to appoint a ministry in accordance with the majority in the

Storthing. In June 1884 Johan Sverdrup was asked to form one. He selected for his ministers leading men on the liberal side in the Storthing, and the first liberal ministry that Norway had was at length appointed. The Storthing, in order to satisfy the king, passed a new resolution admitting the ministers to the national assembly, and this received formal sanction.

During the following years a series of important reforms was carried through. Thus in 1887 the jury system in criminal matters was introduced into the country after violent opposition from the conservatives. A bill intended to give parishioners greater influence in church matters, and introduced by Jakob Sverdrup, the minister of education, and a nephew of the prime minister, met, however, with strong opposition, and was eventually rejected by the Storthing, the result being a break-up of the ministry and a disorganization of the liberal party. In June 1889 the Sverdrup ministry resigned, and a conservative one was formed by Emil Stang, the leader of the conservatives in the Storthing, and during the next two years the Storthing passed various useful measures; but the ministry was eventually wrecked on the rock of the great national question which about this time came to the front—that of Norway’s share in the transaction of diplomatic affairs. At the time of the union in 1814 nothing had been settled as to how these were to be conducted, but in 1835 a resolution was issued, that when the

Swedish foreign minister was transacting diplomatic matters with the king which concerned both countries, or Norway only, the Norwegian minister of state in attendance upon the king at Stockholm should be present. This arrangement did not always prove satisfactory to the Norwegians, especially as the Swedish foreign minister could not be held responsible to the Norwegian government or parliament.

By a change in the Swedish constitution in 1885 the ministerial council, in which diplomatic matters are discussed, came to consist of the Swedish foreign minister and two other members of the cabinet on behalf of Sweden, and of the Norwegian minister at Stockholm on behalf of Norway. The king, wishing to remedy this disparity,

proposed that the composition of the council should be determined by an additional paragraph in the Act of Union. The representatives of the Norwegian government in Stockholm proposed that three members of the cabinet of each country should constitute the ministerial council. To this the Swedish government was willing to agree, but on the assumption that the minister of foreign affairs should continue to be a Swede as before, and this the Norwegians, of course, would not accept. At the king’s instigation the negotiations with the Swedish government were resumed at the beginning of 1891, but the Swedish Riksdag rejected the proposals, while the Norwegian Storthing insisted upon “Norway’s right, as an independent kingdom, to full equality in the union, and therewith her right to watch over her foreign affairs in a constitutional manner.” The Stang ministry then resigned, and a liberal ministry, with Steen, the recognized

leader of the liberal party after Sverdrup’s withdrawal from politics, as prime minister, was appointed.

The new ministry had placed the question of a separate minister of foreign affairs for Norway prominently in their programme, but little progress was made during the next few years. Another and more important question for the country, as far as its shipping and commerce are concerned, now came to the front. The Storthing had in 1891

appointed a committee to inquire into the practicability of establishing a separate Norwegian consular service, and in 1892 the Storthing, acting upon the committee’s report, determined to establish a consular service. The king, influenced by public opinion in Sweden, refused his sanction, and the Norwegian government in consequence sent in their resignation, whereupon a complete deadlock ensued. This was terminated by a compromise to the effect that the ministry would return to office on the understanding that the question was postponed by common consent. The following year the Storthing again passed a resolution calling upon the Norwegian government to proceed with the necessary measures for establishing the proposed consular service for Norway, but the king again refused to take any action in the matter. Upon this the liberal ministry resigned (May 1893), and the king appointed a conservative government, with Emil Stang as its chief. Thus matters went on till the end of 1894, when the triennial elections took place, with the result that the majority of the electors declared in favour of national independence on the great question then before the country. The ministry did not at once resign, but waited till the king arrived in Christiania to open the Storthing (January 1895). The king kept the country for over four months without a responsible government, during which time the crisis had become more acute than ever. A coalition ministry was at last formed, with Professor G. F. Hagerup as prime minister. A new committee, consisting of an equal number of Norwegians and Swedes, was appointed to consider the question of separate diplomatic representation; but after sitting for over two years the committee separated without being able to come to any agreement.

The elections in 1897 proved again a great victory for the liberal party, 79 liberals and 35 conservatives being returned, and in February 1898 the Hagerup ministry was replaced by a liberal, once more under the premiership of Steen. Soon afterwards the bill for the general adoption of the national or “pure” flag, as it was called, was carried for the third time, and became law without the king’s sanction. In 1898 universal political suffrage for men was passed by a large majority, but the proposal to include women received the support of only 33 votes.

In January 1902, on the initiative of the Swedish foreign minister, another committee, consisting of an equal number of leading Norwegians and Swedes, was appointed by the king to investigate the consular question. The unanimous report of the committee was to the effect that “it was possible to appoint separate Norwegian

consuls exclusively responsible to Norwegian authority and separate Swedish consuls exclusively responsible to Swedish authority.” The further negotiations between the two governments resulted in the so-called communiqué of the 24th of March 1903, which announced the conclusion of an agreement between the representatives of the two countries for the establishment of the separate consular service. The terms of the communiqué were submitted to a combined Norwegian and Swedish council of state on the 21st of December 1903, when they were unanimously agreed to and were signed by the king, who commissioned the Norwegian and the Swedish governments to proceed with the drafting of the laws and regulations for the separate consular services. In due course the Norwegian government submitted to the Swedish government their draft of the proposed laws and regulations, but no reply was forthcoming for several months. About this time the Swedish foreign minister, Mr Lagerheim, who had zealously worked for a friendly solution of the consular question, resigned, and in November the same year Boström, the Swedish prime minister, suddenly submitted to the Norwegian government a number of new conditions under which the Swedish