For there is no denying the fact that the scheme for negotiations now propounded is nothing new, but that similar schemes in the earlier history of the Union have repeatedly been tried in vain. The three Committees affecting the Union and made up of Norwegian and Swedish men, that in the past century, after previous treatment in 1844, in 1867, and in 1898 propounded schemes for new regulations concerning the mutual relations of the countries did not lead to any positive result. The report of the first Committee was in 1847 subject to a treatment on the part of the Norwegian Government, but was afterwards not favoured by the Swedish Government; the report of the second Committee, which did not give expression to Norway's equality in the Union was rejected by the vast majority of the Storthing in 1871 and in the third Committee no proposal of a future arrangement could obtain plurality among the Norwegian and the Swedish members. With regard to the last-mentioned Committee we beg leave to draw particular attention to the fact, that all the Swedish members of the Committee certainly agreed upon founding the Union on the principle of parity and equality, inasmuch as they proposed that the Foreign affairs should be entrusted to the charge of a joint Foreign minister of Norwegian or Swedish nationality. But at the same time the two fractions wherein the Swedish members of the Committee were divided, proposed such an arrangement of the constitutional responsibility not only for those members of the separate Cabinet Councils of the countries, who at the side of the Foreign Minister take part in the treatment of diplomatic affairs, but also for the Foreign Minister himself, so that no member of the Norwegian Committee could in this respect support any of the Swedish schemes. In addition to the establishment of a joint Foreign Minister office, all the Swedish members recommended an extension of the constitutional community between the countries which no member of the Norwegian Committee could second and lastly, the scheme for a separate Foreign Office for each country which already was the expression of the opinion prevailing among the Norwegian people, could not gain any support from the Swedish side. In this connection it should also be remembered that equally fruitless proved the negotiations about the arrangement of the ministerial Cabinet Council, carried on between the two Governments in 1885-86 and in 1890-91.