It was indisputably clear to the Norwegian government, that they could not make greater concessions. During the proceeding of the negotiations it had become intimately acquainted with the opinions in Norwegian political circles, and it knew that if it went further, it would risk a defeat in the Storthing. But with equal right, it behoved the Swedish government to take into consideration the prospects of getting the proposal approved of by the Swedish Diet, so much the more so, as the Swedish government, in respect to this question, occupied a more insecure position than the Norwegian. The Norwegian government was supported in the Storthing by a majority on the side of the negotiations. The Swedish government had no support at all. The Diet had certainly not insisted on the breaking off of the negotiations, but it firmly maintained its old standpoint, that the Consular question should be solved in conjunction with the Foreign Minister question. It must therefore be of importance to the Swedish government, to have the proposition worded in such a way that it would remove the doubts of the Diet regarding an isolated solution of the Consular question. In the matter of the immutability of the identical laws, it had sought an effectual guarantee that the independent Consular office would not disloyally--when the time was ripe for it--be provided by Norway with its own Minister for Foreign affairs. This question had been shirked by Norway. It was therefore necessary to cling to other guarantees, in order, if possible, to prevent the Norwegian Consular Office from drifting away from under the direction of the Minister for Foreign affairs, and thus, paving the way by degrees to its original goal--the breaking op of the joint administration for Foreign affairs. It is in this light that his Excellency BOSTROeM'S demands ought undoubtedly to be seen. It may in short be said: If during the negotiations the Norwegian government was bound by Norwegian Union-political traditions, the Swedish government had the same right to refer to its attachment to Swedish Union-political traditions. And, it must be added: That if any of the Swedish conditions, which the Norwegian government pointed out, were an expression for a suspicion of Norway's implicit loyalty in conducting its own Consular affairs, _it was Norwegian traditional Radical Policy from the beginning of 1890 which cast its shadow before it_. And that the old Norwegian Radical traditions had to be taken into account was prowed by the number and length of the discussions in the Storthing, which were dinned into the ears of the negotiators, during the whole period of the negotiations. That even Mr MICHELSEN, one of the parties to the negotiations on the Norwegian government side, in a debate at the Storthing, during the Spring 1904, cast friendly glances on the old lines, showed plainly how little they had forgotten the old talk of taking matters into their own hands.