We know little from actual experience about peaceable separations. To be sure, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Iceland all became independent in peace, as did a few of the still newer nations that formerly were colonies. But those were overseas possessions of empire. With only one exception—the separation of Norway from Sweden—new nations that were former provinces or regions of another country have come to birth in violence. They have either won independence after armed insurrection, highly disruptive terrorism or civil war; or else, like the Balkans or East and West Germany, they have emerged as a sequel to military defeat, prostration and dismemberment by conquerors. It is difficult, if not impossible to sort out the repercussions of such disasters from the practical consequences of the separations themselves. This is only one of many reasons that the singular case of Norway’s peaceful separation is interesting.
Although the separation occurred in this century, in 1905,8 it seems to be little remembered. Perhaps precisely because the tale lacks blood and thunder it has become forgettable. But it does not lack conflict and struggle. The kinds of emotions at work in all cases of separatist sentiment were present in all their force.
Offhand, it might be supposed that Norway was a special case because once upon a time, long ago, it had been an independent kingdom. But think of Scotland, Ulster, Wales, Burgundy, Aquitania, Catalonia, Bavaria, Sicily, Saxony, the Ukraine. . . . one could go on and on. Nothing has been more common than the reduction of kingdoms or powerful dukedoms to provincial status. Norway lost its independence in fact in late medieval times, and then lost it officially in the 16th century when the Danish King decreed that Norway had ceased to exist as a realm and was henceforth part of Denmark.
This was how things stood until 1814 when Norway became one of the chips lost and won in the Napoleonic wars. It was given to Sweden. Denmark was out of luck because it had sided with Napoleon.
At this time Norway was a poor and undeveloped place. Although its economy improved somewhat over the next ninety-one years while it belonged to Sweden, it was still very poor in 1905, at the time of the separation. So we must visualize Norway’s struggle for independence as taking place in two small provincial cities, Oslo and Bergen, a few poor and old towns, and the scattered and isolated settlements of subsistence farmers where most people eked out their livings. Norwegians today marvel at the succession of their great men, generation after generation, who emerged from the narrow, drudging, tradition-bound life and built the country’s independence.
At the time Norway was transferred from Denmark to Sweden there happened to be a few months’ hiatus between the signing of the treaty of transferral and the assumption of rule by Sweden. During this moment of accidental freedom, a group of Norwegians proclaimed independence and called for an assembly representing a cross-section of the population. That assembly, held in the small town of Eidsvold just north of Oslo, went to work feverishly. In ten days it managed to write and adopt a constitution, and authorized itself to create a national bank and a currency. The constitution provided for a constitutional monarchy and a national legislature to be called the Storting, meaning “Great Thing.” At the time, the constitution was the most democratic in Europe. It was also so well constructed and so workable that it still serves as the Norwegian constitution today.
But grand as all this sounds, it was pitiful too. Sweden had made its own very different plans for Norway. In Swedish eyes, Norway was now in effect a province. The arrangement in form was that Sweden and Norway were two kingdoms under one crown, like Scotland and England in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the form was proposed to Sweden by the British.
The actual rule was set up this way. In Stockholm the King appointed a cabinet of Ministers for Norway, composed of Norwegians. They lived and worked in Stockholm and served at the King’s pleasure. On matters affecting both Sweden and Norway, these ministers joined with the Swedish ministers in one cabinet. On matters affecting only Norway, the Ministers for Norway and the civil servants on their staffs were the Norwegian government. So these ministers constituted both the provincial government of Norway and a portion of the national government. In Oslo, a governor-general was ensconced to represent the King and to see that the will of his government was executed.
In view of all this, the Storting and the Norwegian constitution would seem to have been rather in the realm of folk fantasy. Perhaps that is the way the Swedish government thought of it. Let them have their fantasies if it amuses and occupies them. At any rate, Sweden, to its credit, never forbade the Storting or tried to suppress its elections, never arrested or otherwise harried its leaders and members, never attempted to censor its debates or interfere in its communications with the Norwegian people, and did not poison Norwegian political life with spies, secret police, bribers or informers.
By means of persuasion during the first two years of Swedish rule, the Storting managed to pry loose two little fragments of autonomy. Sweden had made what seemed a generous offer, and probably was: the opening of military and civil appointments in both realms to people of both on equal terms. The Storting rejected the offer, and the rejection was respected by Sweden. This closed off to Norwegians the prestigious and ample opportunities of public life to be found in Sweden, but of course it also meant that Swedes could not occupy government posts within Norway, and the members of the Storting evidently thought that was worth the sacrifice.
The other point won was that Sweden agreed to separate its own debts from the debts incurred on behalf of Norway. In this way the Norwegians limited their own financial responsibility for Sweden but at the same time they insisted on taking their full share of a national debt without also having powers to determine the size of the debt, the way the money was raised or what it was to be used for. The Norwegians were also determined to use their own bank and currency which that hasty meeting of the constitutional assembly had authorized, and amazingly enough they did so for a period, although later Sweden tied the money to its own. After independence, Norway again had an independent currency and still does.
Thus two persistent themes were set from the beginning and thereafter ran through Norway’s entire struggle. One was the Norwegians’ lack of fear, poor though they were, about taking financial responsibility for their own affairs—indeed their positive eagerness to do so. The other was their strategy of seeking and grasping whatever bit, piece or symbol of independence they could find, no matter how irrational it might be, given their subordinate status.
They did not win another of those fragments until 1821 when they got themselves a flag. Not a national flag, which they would have liked. That was denied them on grounds that Sweden’s flag was their flag too. Nevertheless, they got permission to use this flag of theirs on their mercantile ships, as a commercial emblem in northern waters. Years later they won the right to use the trade flag on all the oceans. Thus things went in the Storting, symbol or substance, push, push, push over the years, always for a little bit more. In 1837 they won another fragment of financial responsibility, the right of local taxpayers to govern local expenditures for purely local matters. Not all the ideas came out of the Storting. Early on, a poet conceived the idea of celebrating the adoption of the constitution by the Eidsvold assembly. His idea caught on, it soon became a great Norwegian national holiday, and still is.
Up to 1859 the conflict, though earnest, was on the whole very tame. But the Storting was turning balky, digging in its heels. That year it managed to hold off two governmental changes adopted in Stockholm and also asked Sweden to abolish the office of governor-general. Sweden refused. Now, before we plunge into the political crises that are going to follow, we need to be aware of other excitements brewing.
Norway had lacked, or thought it lacked, a language and culture of its own. The language of the pulpit, the press, the schools, the government, the capital city, all educated people and many who were uneducated too, was Danish owing to the centuries-long Danish occupation and rule. The Norwegians pronounced it in a distinctive way; nowadays it is called Dano-Norwegian. Even in Dano-Norwegian, Norwegians had produced little literature, so the Norwegians assumed they had no culture of their own, as that word is usually understood.
Then, beginning in the 1840’s, two young Norwegians started publishing folk tales they had picked up by travelling among the villages and listening. Their work created a sensation in Oslo. In the first place, the stories themselves were a revelation. Their originality, fantasy and beauty revealed a side of the national character Norwegians themselves had hardly appreciated. But the real bombshell was the language. The authors incorporated into Dano-Norwegian as much indigenous Norwegian vocabulary and idiom as they could, while keeping the work understandable to city readers. A new style had been born, based on a preference for selecting words of Norwegian origin. The style produced a new language over the course of time, called Neo-Norwegian, which by the 1890’s became a second official language, making Norway bilingual, which it still is.
About the same time the folk tales were published, a battle shaped up between improvers and preservationists over whether to tear down the ruins of an ancient cathedral in Trondheim. The preservationists, who won, were headed by Norway’s leading historian, who used the battle as an opportunity to educate his country-men in the achievements and civilization of medieval Norway.
In sum, beginning about the middle of the 19th century, Norwegians began to understand they had a history in which it was possible to take pride, a language it was possible to enjoy, and the beginnings of a literature of their own. The excitement and pride this generated was rather overdone, if anything, both then and later. According to an English historian of modern Norway, “anything done by a Norwegian in the arts and sciences, commerce and even sport had always to be vociferously acclaimed as the triumph of a specifically Norwegian culture. . . .”
Alongside the nationalist ferment rose another movement, also idealistic and exciting, which ran counter to independence, a movement called Scandinavianization. Its object was the unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a single nation. The Swedish king favoured the movement, so did many people in all three countries and many Europeans outside them. Unifications were in the air everywhere. The German principalities were uniting into the North German Confederation which became the German Empire. Austria and Hungary were sealing the union that was to hold the joint empire together for half a century. Here in Canada, the time was nearing for Confederation and the British North America Act. In the Scandinavian countries the movement for unification flourished for some twenty years; then abruptly in 1864 it collapsed when Norwegians refused to enter a war with Germany on Denmark’s side.
Now let us get back to the Storting which we left in 1859 when Norway had been turned down on its proposal to abolish the governor-general. The Swedish government had remained a good deal more placatory and patient with the cantankerous Norwegians than the Swedish people had. One can see why Swedes were becoming impatient. Sweden had acted very decently toward Norway within the framework of the conception that Norway was a province; but the Norwegians would not meet the Swedes half-way by taking some pride and pleasure in the association. When the issue of the governor-general was raised, the King had been willing to agree but he was stopped by angry Swedish public opinion.
Instead of backing off from this hostility, the Storting continued to press the issue of the governor-general so persistently that finally, after fourteen years, it got its way. The King abolished the post and in its place created a new office, Minister of State for Norway, a position analogous to that of prime minister. The gain for Norway was the implication that the centre of Norwegian authority was now in Oslo, not Stockholm.
This change was only the first step in a much more ambitious Norwegian scheme: attainment of responsible government under a true parliamentary system. The Storting passed a bill providing for ministers to sit with it and be responsible to it. It was promptly vetoed by Sweden. Hostility between the two peoples mounted further, and tensions increased to the point that during the next thirty years, until separation, there were at least three occasions when it appeared that either Sweden or Norway might take up arms against the other.
During a good part of this perilous period, opinion in Norway was split, although separatists were always in the majority. Within the Storting a split existed that was tailor-made for dissension. In election after election the party favouring separatism was returned with decisive majorities. But the quasi-prime minister, the new Minister of State for Norway who had replaced the governor-general, was a unionist. The government civil service consisted of unionists too. The actual leader of the Storting majority, who was the leader of the separatists, was without formal power. Crisis of some sort was inevitable and it came.
What happened was that the separatist majority proceeded to amend the constitution to require responsible government. Of course the measure was vetoed. So the Storting passed it twice more, each time after elections that returned larger and larger separatist majorities. After the third passage, which the separatists claimed overcame a veto according to the constitution’s own formula for amendment, the Storting ordered Stockholm’s Norwegian ministers to obey the amendment, come to the Storting, and start being responsible to it. Of course they refused.
A legal wrangle of stupendous complexity followed. Overruling the courts, the Storting proceeded to impeach the ministers, convict them, levy fines against them, and declare their offices forfeit and vacant. Through all this, tempers in Sweden rose and so did tempers in Norway. This was one of the occasions when violence appeared probable. The Norwegians feared a royal military coup, which had been rumoured. Volunteer rifle clubs began organizing to resist a coup.
All along, the Swedish government and King were voices of moderation. But now they had only two choices. Either Sweden must enforce its rule by military means, which clearly meant civil war, or else it must accede to the Storting’s demand for responsible government.
Sweden chose the peaceful course. The King asked the leader of the separatist party to form a cabinet. Government of Norway by Norway, the grand and pitiful public fantasy of Eidsvold, seventy years before, had actually become a reality.
The uses to which the Storting put its new powers were on the whole exemplary from a democratic point of view. It concerned itself with such things as introducing the jury system for criminal cases, improving the school system, providing for locally elected school boards, extending suffrage. More ominously, it reorganized the Norwegian army on a more democratic basis. From this point on, the Storting could count on the army.
Things calmed down for about a decade. The unionist accepted responsible government as a fact of life and even won an election or two because of splits in the separatist party over personalities and strategies.
But beginning in 1888, the conflict flared up anew, this time shifting to economic issues. Norway was poor. Sweden, although better off, was underdeveloped and relatively poor too, and in an effort to encourage manufacturing it adopted a policy of very high tariffs. It directed those tariffs quite as much against Norwegian imports as against those from other nations. Perhaps there was some element of satisfaction here, some element of retaliation against Norway for having won the great tussle over responsible government. The Norwegians, with an economy already so close to the bone, felt as if the bone itself were being gnawed.
The only way Norway could compensate for losses of its trade with Sweden was to find more customers abroad for the work of its merchant marine fleet. But here Sweden had Norway in a bind too. As far as foreign affairs were concerned, Norway was still a part of Sweden. It contributed to a joint consular service. Norway now desperately needed consular help in finding and servicing new markets for its cargo shipping, and Swedish consuls were not that interested in hustling for Norway. So the Storting resolved to withhold its consular contributions and to establish unilaterally a service of its own. The King vetoed the measure.
The veto had to be countersigned by the ministers. But these were no longer unionists and would not ratify the royal veto. The government was dissolved and a cabinet of unionists was then appointed by the King, but it could not govern a Storting and a people who would not be governed by it. Its attempts to do so were a shambles. In Sweden, public opinion against Norway was again rising and again there was talk of war.
Now it was the Norwegians’ turn to realize they had only two choices. They could make war to establish their independence or they could pay up their contribution and try to negotiate more attention to their needs. Norway chose the peaceful course. It paid up and negotiated. But no agreements could be reached and the talks broke down. Tempers in both countries grew uglier. The Norwegians embarked on a strong rearmament program for their military forces. Again war looked imminent.
This time it was Sweden’s turn to back off. It did so by suggesting a compromise permitting separate consular services under a single diplomatic staff and negotiations began again. In reality, however, the Swedish position was hardening and the talks got nowhere. By this time even the Norwegian unionists, who felt betrayed by the Swedish negotiators, were ready to embrace secession. Plebiscites were called in Norway, great demonstrations were mounted, the country was in an uproar, and in the spring of 1905 the Storting, now organized into a coalition government of all parties, unanimously passed a bill demanding thoroughly separate consular services.
This was the final crisis. It was over and done with swiftly. The form it took was a legalistic deadlock, a kind of Gordian knot. When the King vetoed the bill, the ministers refused to countersign the veto and resigned their offices. All this was somewhat familiar. But this time the King refused to accept the resignations because that move had worked out as such a mess the last time. In refusing, he said, “No other ministry can now be formed.”
The words of the King meant one thing in Sweden: that Norway must now knuckle under. But in Norway they were chosen to mean something different. There the prime minister, a Bergen ship owner much admired among his countrymen for his quickwittedness and efficiency, quickwittedly used the King’s remark to mean that the King himself had dissolved the union. His argument was that the King, by announcing no ministry could now be formed, had announced he could not constitutionally rule Norway and so had dissolved the union himself. This went over as a great idea in the Storting which passed a resolution on June 7, 1905, that Norway’s union with Sweden was at an end and then proceeded to act as the government of a fully sovereign state.
Of course this did not quite end the matter. As you might suppose, a tense time followed. But once again Sweden recognized that it was a matter of war or peace, and so it resolved matters in this fashion: if the Norwegians would agree to meet certain conditions, then Sweden would be willing to negotiate for dissolution. The chief conditions were that Norway should dismantle its border forts and create a military neutral zone where its lands and waters abutted Sweden, and that Norway must hold a referendum to see whether its people actually did want dissolution.
The Norwegians had already scheduled a referendum. It produced an outpouring of votes overwhelmingly in favour of Norwegian sovereignty, and negotiations promptly started. They were complex and difficult, but now Sweden had accepted the fact of secession and Norway, for its part, recognized it was being dealt with in good faith. In this atmosphere the arrangements moved rapidly, and were readily accepted in both countries. In Norway, a historian has written, “the feelings of relief and of enhanced self-respect were comparable to those which other peoples associate with the winning of a major war.”
It is difficult to say whether the outcome did greater honour to Sweden or to Norway. Let us say that it not only did honour to both, but also to civilization.
The separation, as it turned out, harmed neither country. On the contrary, it was probably helpful to both. The conflict, which could only have grown uglier and more dangerous, was disposed of. Sweden was better off economically in the years to follow than if it had had to carry on its back a poverty-stricken province, as likely would have been the case. Norway, although it went through hard times in its struggle to develop a modern and prospering economy, did succeed in doing so, and with a verve and inventiveness that it is hard to imagine Norwegians could have exercised had the government and people been preoccupied with bitter political grievances. Today each country is the other’s best customer.
Here in Toronto, in two different office buildings, one on King Street, the other on Yonge, are to be found two trade commissions, one Norwegian, one Swedish. To me, the two establishments seem more than pleasant, busy, competently run commercial offices, staffed by cheerful, alert people. To me, they seem the concrete evidence of a miracle—a separation achieved without armed rebellion, without terrorism, without military defeat of a former ruler.
In the Swedish office I recently asked one of the civil servants how Swedes really feel toward Norwegians today: Do they harbour any feelings of resentment about the secession? He looked shocked at the idea. “Of course not,” he said. “We make jokes,” and he blushed. “The same jokes you tell in Canada about Newfies. But the Norwegians are good neighbours, good customers, our best, and they have made a fine country for themselves.” Then he added reflectively, “We wanted them to like being with us, but—” and he shook his head.
There are many obvious differences between Quebec and Norway and between Canada and Sweden. Quebec, for one thing, is better developed economically and richer than Norway was at the time Norwegian sovereignty hung in the balance. Nor is the form of sovereignty-association that René Lévesque has been proposing as thoroughgoing as the sovereignty Norway achieved.
But there are similarities too. Quebec, for some years, has been taking step after step toward autonomy and these moves, as in Norway, jumble symbols with substance; demands for responsibility with claims to cultural pride; economic concerns with political concerns. Canada, for its part, is similar to Sweden in its recoil against the idea of civil war or use of military force to keep Quebec in its place. Canada is also similar to Sweden in not wanting its province to separate, and in wanting Quebec to take pleasure and pride in being Canadian. The government in Ottawa, like the government in Stockholm, is a voice of moderation, in comparison with the anger and hostility against Quebec vented in such places as letters-to-the-editor columns, many newspaper editorials, or on the part of some of the provincial governments. If Quebec does insist on moving toward sovereignty, I have an unshakable feeling that Canada’s behaviour, like Sweden’s, will do honour to civilization. That conviction is one of many reasons why I happen to identify emotionally, very strongly, with my community of Canada.
One of the real differences between Norway and Sweden on the one hand, and Quebec and the rest of Canada on the other, is that Norway and Sweden are so small, which brings up the question of whether it is an economic disadvantage for a nation to be small.