abinet Council on January 11, 1905. Dated January
30, 1905.

[-- -- --]

In the memorandum of the Norwegian Cabinet Council it is suggested that Sec.
8 of the Swedish draft can be interpreted so as to be meant with regard
to any matter being treated by the Consular administration, to give the
Foreign Minister the right to stop the function of the latter and to
assert his own authority instead. But as it is expressly indicated in the
draft that the precept concerned is meant to be relevant only to a
certain case specially mentioned, the opinion expressed does not seem to
be justified. The precept has in view to regulate the relations between
the Foreign Minister and the Consular administration, if, in a matter
subject to consular treatment, the Foreign Minister, owing to the
origination of diplomatic or political circumstances, has found reason to
interfere by virtue of the right the laws are meant to bestow upon him.
When thus a matter is simultaneously treated by different authorities,
that each within its province has to treat it, the possibility of a
conflict can hardly be denied, and still less so as the limits between
the diplomatic and the consular province, as is generally acknowledged,
are extremely uncertain, and as on both sides there is a natural tendency
to extend the sphere of activity to departments formerly looked upon as
exclusively belonging to the other party. It cannot therefore be
incongruous with the laws now being under discussion to insert
regulations for the case alluded to; on the contrary, it seems to be
entirely in consistency with the basis of these laws and with the end of
their institution that such regulations should be given. And it can
hardly be denied that in this case that authority, is the Foreign
Minister, who represents both countries, and in the present case it must
be considered that attention to the interests most important to the joint
countries should be preferred.

The precepts of Secs. 11 and 16 contain the particular instructions meant
to guarrantee that the Consuls shall not transgress the due limits of their
province. Such a guarrantee cannot be dispensed with in the opinion of
the Swedish Cabinet Council. For, cases may be imagined when in a foreign
country a Consul behaves in a way threatening to disturb the good
relations between the Government of the country and the United Kingdoms.
To deprive the representatives of the United Kingdoms, as to their
relations to Fo