In this, and the ensuing interpolations on the Norwegian side, the Norwegian system of conducting negotiations appears in its typical manner. Of real facts and reasons there is not a trace. For instance, though the Norwegian majority itself, in the last Union Committee, emphasized the danger of separating the Consular Service from the Diplomatic administration, Mr HAGERUP does not make the slightest acknowledgement that interminable practical difficulties would be the results of acceding to the Norwegian proposition. Neither is there a single proposal, which, from a Norwegian point of view, would be acceptable, to make decisions that might in any possible degree remedy the deficiences. On the contrary, Mr HAGERUP mentions that such decisions would be calculated to stamp Norway as a dependency, according to international and common law principles, and declared that from a national point of view, it indicates a very great retrogression on the present arrangement of the Consular Service[34:1]. In this, he forgets that Mr BOSTROeM'S conditions refer to exceptional decisions and do not touch the Norwegian Consul's normal position as being a Norwegian civil Official, and he omits to observe that the interference of the Diplomatic Officials with Consular affairs, as proposed by Mr BOSTROeM, would very seldom occur. [Sidenote: _The Swedish Government's proposal._] It is, meanwhile, easy to understand that Mr BOSTROeM'S demand, that the King, on the Swedish Minister's representations, should be empowered to dismiss a Norwegian civil official, would deeply injure the Norwegian susceptibilities, and that it was therefore quite possible to be blind to the fact that the Swedish Minister was also responsible for Norway's Foreign politics. When therefore His Excellency Mr HAGERUP went to Stockholm for further discussions, all the rest of the Swedish Ministers, as will be seen, were ready to present a Swedish proposal[34:2] for identical laws modified especially to meet the sensitive point.