government was prepared to agree to the establishment of separate consuls. This came as a surprise to the Norwegians in view of the fact that the basis for the establishment of separate consuls had already been agreed upon and confirmed by the king in December 1903. According to Boström’s proposals the Norwegian consuls were to be placed under the control of the Swedish foreign minister, who was to have the power to remove any Norwegian consul. The Norwegians felt it would be beneath the dignity of a self-governing country to agree to the Swedish proposals, and that these new demands were nothing less than a breach of faith with regard to the terms of agreement arrived at two years before by both governments and approved and signed by the king. The Norwegian government would have been perfectly justified if, after this, they had withdrawn from the negotiations, but they did not wish to jeopardize the opportunity of arriving at a friendly settlement, and Hagerup, the Norwegian prime minister, proceeded to Stockholm to confer with Boström; but no satisfactory agreement could be arrived at. There was therefore nothing left but for the Norwegians to take matters into their own hands.
On the 8th of February 1905 Hagerup announced to the Norwegian Storthing that the negotiations had fallen through, and on the 17th the Storthing decided unanimously to refer the matter to a special committee. Owing to some difference of opinion between the members of his ministry, Hagerup resigned on the 1st of March and was succeeded by Christian Michelsen, who formed a ministry composed of members of both political parties. The special committee decided that a bill should be immediately submitted to the Storthing for the establishment of a Norwegian consular service and that the measure should come into force not later than the 1st of April 1906. An attempt was made by the Swedish crown prince, acting as Prince Regent during the king’s illness, to enter into new negotiations with the Norwegian government, but the proposals were not favourably received in Norway. In April 1905 Boström resigned, which was considered to be a move on the part of Sweden to facilitate negotiations with Norway. The bill for the establishment of Norwegian consuls was passed by the Storthing without a dissentient voice on the 23rd of May, and it was generally expected that the king, who again had assumed the reins of government, would sanction the bill, but on the 27th of May, in spite of the earnest entreaties of his Norwegian ministers, the king formally refused to do so. The Norwegian Ministry immediately resigned, but the king informed the ministers that Declaration of Independence. he could not accept their resignation. They, however, declined to withdraw it. A few days afterwards the Norwegian government informed the Storthing of the king’s refusal, whereupon the assembly unanimously agreed to refer the matter to the special committee. On the 7th of June the Storthing met to hear the final decision of the government. Michelsen, the prime minister, informed the Storthing that all the members of the government had resigned in consequence of the king’s refusal to sanction the consular law, that the king had declined to accept the resignation, and that, as an alternative government could not be formed, the union with Sweden, based upon a king in common, was consequently dissolved. The president of the Storthing submitted a resolution that the resigning ministry should be authorized to exercise the authority vested in the king in accordance with the constitution of the country. The resolution was unanimously adopted.
King Oscar, on receiving the news of the action of the Norwegian
Storthing, sent a telegraphic protest to the Norwegian
prime minister and to the president of the Storthing.
The Swedish government immediately decided to
summon an extraordinary session of the Swedish
parliament for the 20th of June, when a special committee
Separation
from Sweden.
was appointed to consider what steps should be taken by
Sweden. On the 25th of July the report of the committee was
laid before the Riksdag, in which it was stated that Sweden
could have no objection to enter into negotiations about the
severance of the union, when a vote to that effect had been
given by a newly-elected Storthing or by a national vote in the
form of a referendum by the Norwegian people. The report
was unanimously adopted by the Swedish Riksdag on the 27th
of July, and on the following day the Norwegian Storthing
decided that a general plebiscite should be taken on the 13th
of August, when 368,211 voted in favour of the dissolution and
only 184 against it. It was thereupon agreed that representatives
of Norway and of Sweden should meet at Karlstad in Sweden
on the 31st of August to discuss and arrange for the severance of
the union. The negotiations lasted till the 23rd of September,
though more than once they were on the point of being broken
off. The agreement stipulated a neutral zone on both sides of the
southern border between the two countries, the Norwegians
undertaking to dismantle some fortifications within that zone.
The agreement was to remain in force for ten years, and could
be renewed for a similar period, unless one of the countries gave
Election of
Haakon VII.
notice to the contrary. The Karlstad agreement was
ratified by the Norwegian Storthing on the 9th of
October and by the Swedish Riksdag on the 16th of the
same month. On the 27th of October King Oscar
issued a proclamation to the Norwegian Storthing, in which he
relinquished the crown of Norway. The Norwegian government
was thereupon authorized by the Storthing to negotiate with
Prince Charles of Denmark and to arrange for a national vote as
to whether or no the country would approve of his election for the
Norwegian throne. The plebiscite resulted in 259,563 votes
for his election and 69,264 against. On the 18th of November
the Storthing unanimously elected Prince Charles as king of
Norway, he taking the name of Haakon VII. On the 25th of
November the king and his consort, Queen Maud, the youngest
daughter of King Edward VII. of England, entered the Norwegian
capital. Their coronation took place in the Trondhjem cathedral
the following year.
In 1907 parliamentary suffrage was granted to women with the same limitation as in the municipal suffrage granted to them in 1901, viz. to all unmarried women over 25 years, who pay taxes on an income of 300 kroner (about £16) in the country districts and on 400 kroner (about £22) in the towns, as well as to all married women, whose husbands pay taxes on similar incomes. Norway was thus the first sovereign country in Europe where the parliamentary vote was granted to women. (H. L. B.)
Norwegian Literature
Early Norse literature is inextricably bound up with Icelandic literature. Iceland was colonized from Norway in the 9th century, and the colonists were drawn chiefly from the upper and cultured classes. They took with them their poetry and literary traditions. Old Norse literature is therefore dealt with under Iceland (q.v.). (See also Edda, Saga, Runes.)
The modern literature of Norway bears something of the same relation to that of Denmark that American literature bears to English. In each case the development and separation of a dependency have produced a desire on the part of persons speaking the mother-tongue for a literature that shall express the local emotions and conditions of the new nation. Two notable events led to the foundation of a separate Norwegian literature: the one was the creation of the university of Christiania in 1811, and the other was the separation of Norway from Denmark in 1814. Before this time Norwegian writers had been content, as a rule, to publish their works at Copenhagen. The first name on the annals of Danish literature, Peder Clausen, is that of a Norwegian; and if all Norse writers were removed from that roll, the list would be poorer by some of its most illustrious names, by Holberg, Tullin, Wessel, Treschow, Steffens and Hauch.
The first book printed in Norway was an almanac, brought out in Christiania in 1643 by a wandering printer named Tyge Nielsen, who brought his types from Copenhagen. But the first press set up definitely in Norway was that of Valentin Kuhn, brought over from Germany in 1650 by the theologian Christian Stephensen Bang (1580–1678) to help in the circulation of his numerous tracts. Bang’s Christianiae Stads Beskrifuelse (1651), is the first book published in Norway. Christen Jensen (d. 1653)
