it went further, it would risk a
defeat in the Storthing. But with equal right, it behoved the Swedish
government to take into consideration the prospects of getting the
proposal approved of by the Swedish Diet, so much the more so, as the
Swedish government, in respect to this question, occupied a more insecure
position than the Norwegian. The Norwegian government was supported in
the Storthing by a majority on the side of the negotiations. The Swedish
government had no support at all. The Diet had certainly not insisted on
the breaking off of the negotiations, but it firmly maintained its old
standpoint, that the Consular question should be solved in conjunction
with the Foreign Minister question. It must therefore be of importance to
the Swedish government, to have the proposition worded in such a way that
it would remove the doubts of the Diet regarding an isolated solution of
the Consular question. In the matter of the immutability of the identical
laws, it had sought an effectual guarantee that the independent Consular
office would not disloyally--when the time was ripe for it--be
provided by Norway with its own Minister for Foreign affairs. This
question had been shirked by Norway. It was therefore necessary to cling
to other guarantees, in order, if possible, to prevent the Norwegian
Consular Office from drifting away from under the direction of the
Minister for Foreign affairs, and thus, paving the way by degrees to its
original goal--the breaking op of the joint administration for Foreign
affairs. It is in this light that his Excellency BOSTROeM'S demands ought
undoubtedly to be seen.

It may in short be said: If during the negotiations the Norwegian
government was bound by Norwegian Union-political traditions, the Swedish
government had the same right to refer to its attachment to Swedish
Union-political traditions. And, it must be added: That if any of the
Swedish conditions, which the Norwegian government pointed out, were an
expression for a suspicion of Norway's implicit loyalty in conducting its
own Consular affairs, _it was Norwegian traditional Radical Policy from
the beginning of 1890 which cast its shadow before it_. And that the old
Norwegian Radical traditions had to be taken into account was prowed by
the number and length of the discussions in the Storthing, which were
dinned into the ears of the negotiators, during the whole period of the
negotiations. That even Mr MICHELSEN, one of the parties