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SURVEY OF ITS HISTORY.
103
naturally directed in the first place to the momentous question of a combined
plan of Scandinavian defence. Swedish proposals for the strengthening of the
union and the amendment of its terms, however, were persistently spurned
by the Norwegians. At length the conflict came to a climax on the question
of parity in the conduct of foreign affairs, owing to the Norwegian demand for
their own minister of foreign affairs, their own envoys, their own consuls, in
foreign countries. All conciliatory proposals on the part of Sweden fell through
owing to the obstinate resistance of the Norwegians, who showed themselves
more and more clearly to be aiming at the dissolution of the union. This was
initiated in revolutionary fashion when the King’s Norwegian ministry renounced
their allegiance to him on 7 June 1905. To avoid the shedding of blood the
aged king proposed that, negotiations should be opened (at Karlstad); and the
result of these was that the Norwegians found themselves compelled to clothe
the dissolution of the union in more legal forms, after which it was confirmed
by the Swedish Riksdag in conformity with conditions laid down by Sweden.
These stipulations comprised an arbitration treaty and the establishment of a
neutral boundary zone with the obligation on the part of Norway to raze the
Norwegian fortifications recently erected within the same. The deep feeling of
animosity produced in the Swedish people by the manner in which the
Norwegians set about the dissolution of the union has since been converted into a
powerful national movement; and the years that have elapsed since the breach
of the union have been more and more marked by an increased stir throughout
the most widely different spheres of both spiritual and material life.
Return to Stockholm of the Vega Expedition. April 24, 1880.
In other respects, the most important events of the period are to be found
in the economical, social, and scientific domains. The important developments
brought about during the century in these respects, are the subjects treated of
in the greater part of the present work. Here we need but mention the great
spread of prosperity, the rise of many new branches of industry, the astonishing
perfection to which the means of communication have been brought, the great
work of popular education, and the splendid growth of purely cultural interests,
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