15 The Norwegian Governments’ Report of April 17th 1905
His Excellency Michelsen, Prime Minister, and Chief of the Justice-Department, has in all humility made the following statement:
In making this matter the subject of a humble report the Department desires to state: As is well known the Norwegian people have made a unanimous demand for the establishment of a separate Norwegian Consular service and have with equal unanimity asserted that the decision of this matter, as lying outside the community established between the countries through the Act of Union, should be reserved to the Norwegian constitutional authorities. For the treatement of this matter the Norwegian Storthing has appointed a special Committee and in the immediate future, this committee will prepare a motion that, in the present sitting of the Storthing, a bill be to passed with regard to the establishment of a separate Consular service.
Inasmuch as the scheme propounded in Joint Cabinet Council should be based on the supposition that the further advancement of the Consular question should, for the present, be deferred Norway’s approval of such a supposition would, in the opinion of the Department be equivalent to giving up of the Norwegian people’s unanimous desire to now see a just right carried through which is due to Norway in her capacity of a Sovereign realm and is secured in her Constitution, and for a reform requested with cumulative force by the development and the conditions of industry, instead of entering into negotiations between the countries, which, after renewed experience, may unfortunately be apprehended to prove fruitless or at best, to delay the realisation of the matter.
For there is no denying the fact that the scheme for negotiations now propounded is nothing new, but that similar schemes in the earlier history of the Union have repeatedly been tried in vain. The three Committees affecting the Union and made up of Norwegian and Swedish men, that in the past century, after previous treatment in 1844, in 1867, and in 1898 propounded schemes for new regulations concerning the mutual relations of the countries did not lead to any positive result. The report of the first Committee was in 1847 subject to a treatment on the part of the Norwegian Government, but was afterwards not favoured by the Swedish Government; the report of the second Committee, which did not give expression to Norway’s equality in the Union was rejected by the vast majority of the Storthing in 1871 and in the third Committee no proposal of a future arrangement could obtain plurality among the Norwegian and the Swedish members.
With regard to the last-mentioned Committee we beg leave to draw particular attention to the fact, that all the Swedish members of the Committee certainly agreed upon founding the Union on the principle of parity and equality, inasmuch as they proposed that the Foreign affairs should be entrusted to the charge of a joint Foreign minister of Norwegian or Swedish nationality. But at the same time the two fractions wherein the Swedish members of the Committee were divided, proposed such an arrangement of the constitutional responsibility not only for those members of the separate Cabinet Councils of the countries, who at the side of the Foreign Minister take part in the treatment of diplomatic affairs, but also for the Foreign Minister himself, so that no member of the Norwegian Committee could in this respect support any of the Swedish schemes. In addition to the establishment of a joint Foreign Minister office, all the Swedish members recommended an extension of the constitutional community between the countries which no member of the Norwegian Committee could second and lastly, the scheme for a separate Foreign Office for each country which already was the expression of the opinion prevailing among the Norwegian people, could not gain any support from the Swedish side.
In this connection it should also be remembered that equally fruitless proved the negotiations about the arrangement of the ministerial Cabinet Council, carried on between the two Governments in 1885-86 and in 1890-91.
If thus the results of the above-mentioned efforts have been but little encouraging, this can, in a still higher degree, be said to have been the case with the negotiations just now terminated concerning questions connected with the establishment of a separate Consular service for each country. After these negotiations, brought about on Swedens initiative, had led to a preliminary agreement presupposing a separate Consular service for each country, subject to the home authority which each country decided for itself, and after this agreement had been approved of by the King and the Governments of the two countries in Joint Cabinet Council on December 21, 1903, the matter, as is well known, fell through owing to the so called bills of the same wording that were meant to regulate the relations between the separate Consular services on the one hand, and the Foreign Minister and the legations on the other hand. This negative result was attributed to the circumstance that from the Swedish side a number of demands were finally made and adhered to, which are partly considered as incongruous with the Constitution of Norway and with our rights as a Sovereign realm, partly would exclude what had been presupposed in the preliminary agreements viz. that the Consuls of each country should be subject to that home authority which each country decided for itself. Through this, a deep disappointment has arisen in Norway which, if strengthened by new unsuccessful schemes, will imply the greatest danger to the good relations between the two peoples which in a far higher degree than agreements laid down in treatises or juridical forms are the basis of the concord and the strength of both peoples.
Under these circumstances the Department finds it necessary to dissuade from entering into new negotiations on the Union affairs ere a separate Norwegian Consular service has been established. Not until this has been done, will the confidence return which is the condition of any friendly and successful consideration of embarrassing and delicate Union affairs, and the Department will then be able to recommend the opening of negotiations for arranging the management of Foreign affairs and of the diplomacy and about the present Union based on the Act of Union, and questions connected with this matter. But, if so, these negotiations must be carried on an entirely free basis with full recognition of the Sovereignity of each country without any reservation or restriction whatever and consequently also — in conformity with what occurred in 1898 — embrace the arrangement proposed by the Norwegian side as to the establishment of a separate Norwegian and a separate Swedish Foreign Office administration in such forms as each country will consider necessary for its objects and interests. In harmony with this it should, besides, be agreed upon that, if also new negotiations should prove fruitless one must not return to status quo so as to adhere to the present untenable state of Union affairs. There should be a binding presumption that the present state of things must not prevent either country from exercising its right of self-determination, but that instead each country can freely decide upon the future forms of its national existence. For not a coercive union but only the mutual confidence and feeling of solidarity of the free and independent nations can safeguard the future and the happiness of both peoples and the independence and integrity of their countries.
With reference to the above-mentioned statement endorsed in substance by the other members of the Cabinet Council, it is recommended in all humility:
that a copy of the present humble report made in Joint Cabinet Council on April 5th this year, concerning new negotiations affecting the Union may graciously be ordered to be delivered over to the Swedish Iustice-Department.