sounded, the Storthing itself taking the
initiative, this time, strange to say, receiving the hint from Mr
MICHELSEN. The requests of the Ministers to resign were withdrawn, and
the Consular Question was postponed to a future date. The Norwegian
masses were not as yet sufficiently impregnated with the gospel of the
dissolution of the Union--and Norway was not yet armed for defence.

The following year the same tale began afresh. The Storthing resolved on
having a separate Consular Service, the Ministers sent in their requests
to resign, to avoid, as they declared, rousing a constitutional dispute
on the countersignature question which might bring about consequences
"that scarcely any other political question had aroused in our present
constitution". This time the Conservatives stepped into the breach on
behalf of the King and the Union. For two years The Cabinet STANG opposed
a furious Storthing, while the King was powerless to form a parliamentary
Radical Ministry on reasonable terms. This conflict naturally produced
intense excitement, and the Radicals, of course, saw in the King's
opposition, Sweden's and the King's of Sweden, not the King's of the
United Kingdoms fighting a battle against the destruction of the Union.
It is in this way that the Consular Question became magnified into a
question of National honour. The blow given to their honour by the
disloyalty of the Radicals to the _Union_ was entirely ignored. The
Consular question became by degrees, the chief National question of the
country.

[Sidenote: _The position in 1895._]

In the Spring of 1895 the situation in Norway was such that a complete
standstill was threatened, and all sorts of extravagant plans were mooted
on the Norwegian Radical Side. It was then that in limited Swedish
Conservatives circles a plan was said to exist for making Norway come to
an agreeable settlement of the Union question, by main force. This is a
matter impossible to decide. These reports spread like wildfire, and had
the effect of oil upon fire. And now at last Norway begins to think of
her defence which of late years she has neglected.

[Sidenote: _The Union Committee 1895-1908._]

The Norwegians meanwhile gave in as Norway was not ready. The Storthing
in Norway also consented to what Sweden had all along endeavoured to
obtain, viz. a general settlement. The Union Committee 1895-1898 effected
a couple of year's truce; any real results were not to be expected. The
Norwegi