The Lost Massey Lectures (30 page)

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.

The idea of Canada becoming smaller than it is now, and Quebec being an even smaller sovereignty than that, seems economically threatening to many people. On the one hand, although we hear “Small is Beautiful,” we also hear “Bigger is Better.” Is either of these sayings enlightening as far as the quality of a nation's economy or government is concerned?

Norway and Sweden are plausible cases to support an argument for smallness. While both countries do have their problems, as things go in this world they are both successful economically. They produce amply and diversely for their own people and diversely for export, too. Their economies are up-to-date, productive, efficient and innovative, providing wide ranges of opportunities for their people. Yet Norway has a population of only four million, about two-thirds the size of Quebec's. Sweden has slightly more than eight million, about the size of Ontario's population. Each is small in comparison with Canada's 23½ million.

With that in mind, consider this economic argument that Bigger is Better. It comes from a fact sheet, as it's called, put out by the Minister of Industry of one of our provinces.
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It could just as well have been plucked from any of hundreds of Canadian speeches, reports or panel sessions.