712 



SWEDEN AND NORWAY, 



SWITZERLAND. 



279 kroner ; expenses, 1,668.489 kroner. The post 

 office forwarded 30,859,400 internal and 10,636,900 

 foreign letters and postal cards, 44,326,600 internal 

 and 4,647,200 external pieces of foreign printed 

 matter, and 2,091,300 internal money letters, valued 

 at 324,400,000 kroner, and 101,300 foreign ones, 

 valued at 26,400,000 kroner. The receipts were 

 4,123,864 and expenses 3,924,118 kroner. 



Political Events. The constitutional conflict 

 between Norway and Sweden entered upon a new 

 and more serious phase in 1898. It has dragged 

 along since Norway was forced into the union by 

 conquest in 1814, and has its grounds in the essen- 

 tially different social character of the two peoples 

 and their political ideas and institutions. The dif- 

 ferences between the old Radical party, led by 

 Sverdrup and the extreme, almost Republican Radi- 

 cals, inspired by Bjornstjerne Bjornson, impelled the 

 King to appoint the Conservative Ministry of Stang 

 in 1888, which hung on in defiance of votes of no 

 confidence until the Radicals united again on the 

 consular question and forced Stang to retire in 

 1895. In 1896 the Storthing voted to adopt a Nor- 

 wegian national flag without any symbol of union 

 with Sweden. This decision King Oscar refused to 

 sanction. A threatening counter agitation was ex- 

 cited in Sweden by the irreconcilable attitude of 

 the Norwegian Left, so that when the Storthing 

 voted exceptional army credits the Swedes increased 

 the vote for contingent expenses. In the hope of 

 averting a rupture by discovering a modus vivendi 

 the Swedish Government proposed a joint commis- 

 sion, which was accordingly constituted of 5 Mod- 

 erates and 2 Conservatives, appointed on the part 

 of Sweden, and 4 Moderates and 3 Radicals as Nor- 

 wegian representatives. Concluding its delibera- 

 tions in January, 1898, the commission presented 

 four different reports ; a majority and a minority 

 report for each nation. All the Swedish represent- 

 atives were in favor of replacing the Riksakt of 

 1815 with a new act of union, and this the Norwe- 

 gians unitedly opposed. The Swedish commission- 

 ers were willing to give the maximum of liberty 

 to each country consistent with the maintenance of 

 the union, and to concede absolute equality of rights 

 with regard to common institutions, even to the 

 point of having a common Ministry of Foreign 

 Affairs presided over by either a Swede or a Nor- 

 wegian. They proposed that all questions of for- 

 eign policy be referred to the King in the presence 

 of an equal number of ministers of each country, 

 and that these consulting ministers and the com- 

 mon Foreign Minister be responsible to a common 

 Supreme Court. The minority of the Swedish com- 

 missioners proposed that the Foreign Minister be 

 responsible to a joint delegation of 30 members 

 of the Swedish Riksdag and 30 membsrs of the 

 Storthing ; the majority, that he should appear be- 

 fore the Parliament of each country separately. 

 The Swedish commissioners admitted the justice of 

 a preferential arrangement for Norway in regard to 

 consular fees in recognition of the great preponder- 

 ance of the Norwegian commercial marine, but 

 would not agree to a separate consular service. 

 They recommended that the King's civil list and 

 the maintenance of the army and navy be made an 

 equal charge on Norway and Sweden in proportion 

 to their population ; that for the defense of the two 

 kingdoms a certain minimum force of Swedish and 

 Norwegian regular troops should be created, which, 

 together with the combined navies, would be at the 

 King's disposal at the instant of mobilization. The 

 Norwegian Storthing, overriding the royal veto, 

 has been able to withdraw the forces of Norway 

 from the obligation to serve in the common defense 

 by organizing nearly the whole of them as Lande- 

 vaernet, or militia, which can not be counted as 



troops of the line or used beyond the frontier, as is 

 laid down in a paragraph of the Norwegian Consti- 

 tution. The majority of the Swedish commissioners 

 therefore demanded a guarantee that the King 

 should be able to command the land forces of Nor- 

 way in the same way that he can those of Sweden. 

 The Norwegian Radical commissioners took the 

 ground that no change in the act of union is neces- 

 sary for their purposes, since the Storthing can 

 now enact laws without the royal consent, and 

 therefore erect a separate consular service and even 

 a Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They 

 were willing to agree to a common Ministry of 

 Foreign Affairs and a common Supreme Court* but 

 they would require the consultative ministers still 

 to answer to their respective Parliaments. A sep- 

 arate consular service they insisted upon, though 

 they were willing to grant by a convention a certain 

 degree of control over, it to a common Ministry of 

 Foreign Affairs, and to continue for fifteen years 

 longer the common consular representation. The 

 Swedish demand that any part of the Norwegian 

 military forces should be held at the disposal of the 

 King for the defense of Sweden against invasion 

 they refused to consider, and in regard to the civil 

 list they wanted the Storthing to retain the right to 

 alter or withhold it without reference to Swedish 

 action. The minority report of the Norwegian 

 commissioners recommended a separate Foreign 

 Minister and diplomatic service as well as separate 

 consular representation for the two countries. 



The hopeless divergence between the Swedish 

 and Norwegian commissioners rendered the position 

 of the ministry, which had striven for an agreement, 

 untenable. The session of the Storthing was opened 

 on Feb. 11, and the next morning the ministry re- 

 signed. M. Steen, the leader of the Extreme Rad- 

 icals, was called upon to form a ministry, which was 

 completed on Feb. 17, consisting of the following 

 members : Minister of State, J. W. C. Steen ; Min- 

 ister of Worship and Public Instruction, V. A. 

 Wexelsen ; Minister of Justice and Police, 0. A. 

 Qvam ; Minister of the Interior, P. T. Thilesen ; 

 Minister of Public Works, J. G. Lovland ; Minister 

 of Finance and Customs, E. Sunde ; Minister of 

 National Defense, Col. P. T. Hoist ; Section sitting 

 in Stockholm, O. A. Blehr, Minister of State, and 

 H. H. T. Nysom and E. Lochen, Councilors of 

 State. 



The report of the commission on the act 'of union 

 was presented to the Riksdag and the Storthing 

 simultaneously on March 7. The Storthing de- 

 bated, among other measures, a bill for the reor- 

 ganization of the national school system. When it 

 reassembled in the autumn it passed for the third 

 time, with but one dissenting vote, a bill to intro- 

 duce a purely Norwegian flag, without the emblem 

 of union with Sweden. Once more the King re- 

 fused to sanction this measure, though he was 

 obliged to accept and promulgate it as law, having 

 exhausted his power of veto. A loan of 20,000,000 

 kroner was raised for military purposes. 



SWITZERLAND, a federal republic in central 

 Europe. The Federal Assembly is made up of two 

 bodies, a National Council of 147 members, elected 

 by direct universal suffrage for three years, and a 

 States Council of 44 members, elected by the call- 

 tons. In joint session the two bodies elect a Federal 

 Council of 7 members, who preside over the execu- 

 tive departments. Any act of legislation can be 

 vetoed or any amendment to the Constitution can 

 be enacted by a referendum decided by popular 

 vote whenever it is demanded by 30,000 citizens or 

 by 8 cantons. The Federal Council in 1898 was 

 composed of the following members : President and 

 Chief of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dr. A. 

 Deucher, of Thurgun ; Vice- President and Chief of 



