Norway's lawful interests could
receive due attention. But by the amendment of the Constitution 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
Constitution 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 Constitution 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
constitutional 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 constitutional 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.

[Si