[72:1] This paragraph describes the joint so-called provisional
Government.
3.
Preliminary settlement of the Consular question between members of the
Swedish and the Norwegian Cabinet Council, on March 24, 1903. (The
so-called Communiqué).
The negotiations carried on in Stockholm during the last months of
October, December, and January between the members of the Swedish and the
Norwegian Government here subjoined, and regarding the Consular question,
have been continued in Christiania during February and March.
During these negotiations the Swedish members maintained that the
establishment of a separate Consular service for each of the United
Kingdoms did not seem to them desirable in itself, and that they were not
convinced that a dissolution of the existing community, in this respect,
would convey any important practical advantages to either of the
Kingdoms. On the contrary, there were reasons to apprehend lest this
arrangement should lead to inconveniences.
Whereas, however, an opposite opinion has long been upheld by Norway and
whereas, during the negotiations resulting from the report of the latest
Consular committee made up by members from both countries, it has turned
out not to be impossible to arrange, on certain conditions, such a system
with separate consuls for each Kingdom as could, while it was meant to
satisfy the desires expressed by Norway, also remove the principal
apprehensions on the part of Sweden, the Swedish negotiators in order to
attain the most important advantage of political concord between the two
Kingdoms, have found it possible to recommend an agreement on the
following terms:
1. Separate Consular services for Sweden and for Norway shall be
established. The Consuls of each Kingdom shall be subordinate to the
authority of their own country which the latter shall have to determine.
2. The relations of the separate consuls to the Minister for Foreign
Affairs and to the Embassies shall be regulated by laws of th seame
wording which cannot be altered nor abolished without the consent of the
authorities, of both Kingdoms.
The Swedish negotiators have added to this that they realise in full and
acknowledge that the position held for the present by the Minister for
Foreign Affairs, does not correspond to the equality within the Union
that Norway is entitled to claim. They have held forth the desirability
of this question being made an object of negotiations, which, however, at
present has not met with approval on the part of Norway. They have,
however, declared themselves prepared to advise the King, whenever such a
desire is expressed on the side of Norway, to lay before the Riksdag and
the Storthing a proposition about such alterations of the Act of Union as
can clear the way for the King to appoint a Swede or a Norwegian-Minister
for Foreign affairs and render it possible to institute the minister's
constitutional responsibility before the national assemblies of both
Kingdoms.
To this the Norwegian negotiators have answered that they naturally
concur in the opinion that the existing arrangement for the
administration of Foreign affairs does not agree with Norway's justified
claims on equality within the Union. It was therefore all the more
evident that, on the part of Norway, no regulations could be accepted
that were meant to bind it to this arrangement. At the same time,
however, they wanted to express the hope that the question about a
satisfactory arrangement of the administration of Foreign affairs might
soon be made an object of negotiations between the Kingdoms.
When the present negotiations had been carried on by Norway under the
supposition that the question about a change of this unsatisfactory state
of things should be left untouched, it had been done so out of regard to
the fact that the opinions about the best way of correcting this state of
things were so different in the two countries that, for the present, an
agreement could not be expected.
We Swedish and Norwegian negotiators, having thus been confined to try to
bring about such an arrangement of the Consular question as will leave
_status quo_ undisturbed with respect to the position of the Minister for
Foreign affairs and of the Embassies, have agreed upon that the relation
between the Minister and the Diplomacy on the one hand, and the separate
Consular Services on the other, should be regulated by laws of the same
wording which cannot be altered by one of the parties alone and which
both shall guarantee that the Consuls do not overstep the limits of their
authority and at the same time shall add security to the necessary
co-operation between the management of foreign affairs and the Consular
Services of both Kingdoms.
In conclusion we also want to express the hope that the time shall not
be remote when, by conciliatory advances on both sides, the question of
arranging the management of Foreign affairs can be made an object of
negotiations and find such a solution as can produce satisfaction in both
countries and enduringly secure the futurity of the Union.