h reference to the future solving of the Foreign Minister
question. The Swedish delegates have therefore evidently tried to exact
from Norway, as an expression of implicit loyalty, a contract not to seek
to alter the Status quo with respect to the Foreign administration[27:2],
without an agreement with Sweden.

How is it possible then, that the Norwegian government in the Storthing
could interpret the Communique as it did?

As long as the details in the protocol of negotiations are not known, it
is impossible to make any definite assertions.

The Norwegian government may possibly have felt assured that the
Communique did not intend a direct refusal to Norway of its assumed legal
right to its own Minister for Foreign affairs--that demand could
scarcely be expected to emanate from Sweden--and passed over the
Swedish delegates' plain intention to bind Norway to the _execution_ of
that right. But as this question has manifestly been an object of
protracted debates, the Norwegian government cannot possibly have
remained in ignorance of the Swedish delegates' intentions with regard to
the wording of the Communique on that point, and the Norwegian
governments attitude in the matter, is, to say the least, rather strange,
especially in the light of the apparently somewhat undiplomatic War
Minister STANG'S open declaration in the Storthing, that according to his
idea of the matter, _the decisions in respect to the identical laws were
scarcely in accordance with Mr_ BLEHR'S _interpretation of the
Communique_.

Now, however matters may have been in detail, one indisputable fact
remains clear, _that the guarantee the Swedish delegates sought to effect
by means of the identical laws, has been refused on the grounds of the
Norwegian interpretation of the Communique_. This must be kept strictly
in view, if any correct idea of the ensuing development of events is to
be obtained.

FOOTNOTES:

[19:1] It is undoubtedly Russia's proceedings in Finland which have
especially influenced the recent unionist-political views of BJOeRNSON.

[21:1] The most effective power in the Committee was D:r SIGURD IBSEN,
who is credited with having drawn up the drafts of the result of the
Committee's debates. The rest of the members were the Swedish Ambassador
BILDT at the Court of St James, the Consul General AMEEN in Barcelona,
and the Consul General CHRISTOPHERSEN in Antwerp.

[21:2] The Swedish members of the Committee indicate, incidentally,