THE SCANDINAVIAN CRISIS. T HE brief announcement which has appeared in
the newspapers that the King of Sweden has sum- moned representatives of the Chambers to a secret Session, covers facts more serious than are generally recognised. Thew Sessions have been held so rarely in the history of Sweden that the incident would of itself be suggestive of an important crisis. The additional information that the Swedish Government has made quietly all prepara- tions for an effective movement of troops would indicate at least that the relations between the two Scandinavian Kingdoms have been seriously strained. Most people, however, will be disposed to assume that any local disturbance in Scandinavia can have no European im- portance, and to look upon it as a storm in a teacup. There are, however, at present in the back-ground, grave complications which may before long bring the whole question into prominence, and it is very important in the interest of peace that these should not be unwatched in England. Private letters from English residents in the Peninsula are full of astonishment that no notice should have been taken of the serious dangers which, as they con- sider, threaten European peace. An agitation has long existed in Paiislavic circles in Russia for the acquisition of an open port in the North Sea. The agitators have announced their determination to obtain possession, "by fair means or foul," of the Norwegian portion of the Varanger Fjord, which contains harbours open all through the winter. The late Czar sternly opposed himself to this agitation ; but since the accession of the present Czar, the activity of these patriotic and irrepressible agitators has recommenced. The completion of a Russian railway up to the eastern or Russian side of the Fjord, which forms the rather unsettled boundary between Norway and. Russia, naturally gives them both stimulus and opportunity. To reach the sea somewhere is the one and very natural aspiration of Russian patriots. The difficulties which meet them everywhere else make the temptation of an open winter port immediately adjacent to the northern land- border of Russia very considerable. Accordingly, numbers of them are found straying into Norrland, the adjacent province of Sweden, and are at least suspected by the Swedish Government of spying out the nakedness of the land. The most significant fact, however, is that the organ of the Pansiavic agitators, the Moskowskia Vitidomosti, has put forward the argument that it ought not to be difficult to acquire this fjord, because it belongs to "a friendly as well as weak nation,"—i.e., Norway. Now, it is this which gives significance to the present agitation in Norway, and makes the Swedes at least suspect that Russian agitators are behind it.
Sweden, which, ever since the original Act of Union in 1814, has had the entire administration of the foreign affairs of the United Kingdoms, is resolutely opposed to any sur- render of territory to Russia. In Norway voices have been raised for the surrender of Varanger Fjord on a general peace at any price principle. It is therefore altogether in the interest of the Russian patriots to treat Norway as apart from Sweden in foreign affairs. Now the whole point of the agitation which has for some time been going on in Norway turns on the question of foreign policy. All parties in Norway are agreed in demanding a larger share for their country in the regulation of the foreign affairs of the two Kingdoms. Practically all parties in Sweden are agreed that the time has come when Norway ought to have a voice in the regulation of foreign affairs. Two years ago the Swedish Council of State put out a protocol announcIng the terms on which they were pre- pared to meet the wishes of Norway. These were that the Foreign Minister should be responsible to a united representative body constituted so as to give fair weight to the two countries according to their population, and that Norway should undertake a share in the common de- fence of the two Kingdoms proportionate to her population. No party in Norway was altogether prepared to base their popularity upon advocating an increase in military and naval preparation. Whilst Sweden has a very fairly organised naval and military force, and especially modern war-ships, Norway has allowed her forces to fall into complete decay, and has no modern war-ships. Therefore, the strain of meeting the demands of Sweden would have been severely felt by the peasants, and the proposal was evaded. In order, however, to keep up the agitation, the Left put forward as their programme at the recent elec- tions a proposal which they assured their electors could certainly be carried out at once without entailing other inconvenient consequences. They promised to insist on separate Norwegian Consuls at all ports. For this, in point of the amount of the shipping trade of the two countries, there was fair ground. Curiously enough, however, it appears to be wholly a landsman's view of the question. The Norwegian shippers, for the most part at all events, wish to maintain the common flag. One reason for this is that as nearly the whole Navy is Swedish, the shippers feel that they will receive more effective support in those parts of the world where they most require it, if the two nations are presented to foreign countries as one. In any case, the Left carried the recent elections by a small majority against a simple proposal from the Right for the constitution of a common Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which must have been either a barren scheme, or have involved agreement with the pro- posals made by Sweden. We have sketched the history of the question up to the present date ; but it involves many curious and interesting points of constitutional history, which, together with the actual situation, are fully set forth in a paper by a Swede in the current number of the United So vice Magazine, to which we are indebted for many of the particulars. To com- plete the story. When the Left presented their pro- gramme to the King, he felt himself bound by the resolution of the Swedish Council of State, and referred the leaders of the majority to the "fundamental law" of the Kingdom, requiring them to present him with a pro- gramme consistent with it. The Left, bound by their election speeches, found themselves unable to form a Government, and endeavoured to effect a compromise with the Right which would enable them to force some unanimous proposal upon the King. The Right re- solutely refused all co-operation. The King therefore returned to Stockholm without having formed any Government in Norway. He was received with an enthusiastic ovation such as he has been little accus- tomed to among a people not hitherto remarkable for very warm feelings towards their reigning house. It is safe, therefore, to assume that the subjects submitted to the secret meeting were those which we have here suggested. It is easy to see that the alternatives are serious enough. If the meeting should resolve to make some further concessions to Norway, it is practically cer- tain that the next demand of the present majority in the Norwegian Storting will be either for a separate Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or for some step immediately leading up to it. There has never been any disguise about the fact that the policy of the Left consists in obtaining this concession, and ultimately a complete dissolution of the Union. On the other hand, the agitation in Norway has assumed the dangerous form that twenty thousand rifles have been ordered. For these, it is said that the Left are eagerly waiting. Moreover, patriotic Norwegian ladies have subscribed for a gun-boat, which, in the present temper, seems to be more probably designed to give force to Norwegian demands against Sweden than to add to the small contribution which Norway makes to the guardianship of the common commerce. These would be trivial matters in themselves. There is no force in Norway that could for a moment resist the army that Sweden could at once throw over the border. The danger which it will be necessary for the King to point out, lies in the present temper towards Sweden of the Russian Army and the Panslavist agitation. The feeling on the subject of the Russian Army has of late become so bitter that the Swedish officers who had taken service in that country have been throwing up their commissions, saying that they could not, without disloyalty to their own country, remain in the Russian service. What might happen if the Swedish Army actually crossed the frontier and met with such resistance as to give time for Panslavic excitement to arise, it is difficult to say. For the Swedes it must be a question whether it is better to wait till the twenty thousand Norwegian rifles are delivered, and agitation assumes the form of armed action against the resolution of the King, or to deal with it at a time when no bloodshed need occur, because resistance would be impossible. It may be that it is only a spark that now glimmers in the North, but it is a spark in dangerous proximity to a powder-barrel. When such an experienced and popular Monarch as Alexander the Emancipator was unable, much as he wished it, to stop Russia from driving, not drifting, on into war with Turkey, it can never be certain whether a young Czar will be able to restrain the forces which in Russia at all times make for war, and especially for the protection of a "weak and friendly Power" which is anxious, so at least patriotic feeling will suggest, to hand over to Holy Russia. the first open winter port into the
world's seas of which she has had a chance. That Ger- many regards the maintenance of the Scandinavian Union and its integrity as an essential part of her policy does not make the question leas serious ; for it will certainly not be taken into account by, or if taken into account, will only excite, that mysterious force which, despite auto- cracy, often dominates the Russian people. The sooner the spark is stamped out, the better in the interest of all mankind. It is high time that the nature of the question and its gravity should be understood in England.
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