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THE

MONTHLY CHRONICLE.

SWEDEN AND NORWAY.

MR. LAING'S REPLY TO A PAMPHLET

"On the Moral State and Political Union of Sweden and Norway, in answer to Mr. Laing's Statement." London. J. Murray, Albemarle Street. 1840.

IN 1836 Mr. Laing published "A Journal of a Residence in Norway," and, in 1838, "A Tour in Sweden." These works were much read. The views they gave of the physical and moral state, and comparative well-being, of two nations living in the Scandinavian peninsula, under totally distinct social systems, were considered very curious and interesting. They directed the attention of political philosophers to singular results developed in Norway upon the multiplication, well-being, and morality of its isolated population, by the great diffusion of property and of legislative power, and by the perfect political equality of all classes in the social body; and to equally singular results in Sweden, arising from a social structure altogether the reverse of the Norwegian. Trifling as these works were as literary productions, they awakened the public mind in Europe to the unprincipled attempts of the Swedish cabinet to subvert the liberal constitution of Norway, although virtually guaranteed to the Norwegian nation by England and the other allied powers, and formally accepted and sworn to by the Swedish monarch himself; and they had the effect of raising around the Norwegian constitution the impregnable barrier of the European public opinion which the Swedish monarch and his cabinet are forced to respect. When the last of these two works appeared, a semi-official notice was given in the government newspaper of Stockholm, that a refutation of the statements and reasonings contained in them would be published - that is, observed the other newspapers, provided they can be refuted. Two years, and much diplomatic. wisdom, have been expended in doing into English those Swedish ideas on government and national morality which constitute this official long-promised refutation. It has at last dropped unnoticed into the world, in the shape of a two-shilling pamphlet of sixty-five pages, "On the Moral State and Political Union of Sweden and Norway, in answer to Mr. S. Laing's Statements." Two shillings are not much money, yet a pamphlet may be very dear at two shillings. But this is a work of the state, an official defence of a nation and its government, of a king, cabinet, and diet, in sixty-five pages, price two shillings. Let us pay that respect to the outward official position of this two shillings' worth of printed paper which we would deny to its intrinsic merit and value this is the principle on which the monarchy itself is based in Sweden.

The statements of Mr. Laing which chiefly interest the public, and which, from the importance of the deductions made from them, the public may

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reasonably expect to see specially refuted in this pamphlet, are these:First, his statement that the Norwegian constitution works admirably well that the people of Norway, with their legislation entirely in their own hands, without a nobility or privileged class in their legislature, and with the power of the king limited constitutionally to a mere suspensive veto in the enactment of laws, without any exclusive right to the sole initiative, are prosperous and thriving in a remarkable degree that they have, by the economical measures of their legislature, paid off their national debt, have reduced their taxes, have, notwithstanding, provided for military, naval, and civil establishments suitable to their just position in the political world; are removing gradually and judiciously, not precipitately, restrictions on the freedom of industry and trade inherited from their Danish masters; are allowing no superfluous functionaries, military, naval, or civil, Swedish or Norwegian, to batten upon the means of the industrious classes, and are evincing the most unquestionable and enlightened loyalty to the monarch to whom they have sworn allegiance, although steadily, firmly, but respectfully, exposing and defeating his want of loyalty to the constitution he had sworn to accept and maintain. Now is this statement true or false?

This Swedish statesman tells the world that the Norwegian constitution is bad, because Aristotle and Cicero, Bacon and Machiavelli, Montesquieu and Madison, Jeremy Bentham and Sismondi, Tocqueville, and Guizot, and himself, are all master-minds, who have declared that "a national representation, formed in one democratical chamber, will fall into frequent mistakes; will, by its single position against royalty, get into conflict with it, which must either lead to absolutism, or, what is still worse, to anarchy ;" and, moreover, this Swedish master-mind tells the world, that the division of the Norwegian representative assembly into two chambers is insufficient to take it out of this anathema of great authorities against a single democratic chamber.

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Mr. Laing's reply to all this array of authorities is a simple reference to the facts contradict them who can that this Norwegian constitution has been in operation now for a quarter of a century, going on smoothly, unless when the royal finger is laid hold of by the Swedish counsellors of his majesty, and unadvisedly thrust into the machinery, when it gets an ugly squeeze, and is precipitately withdrawn. This practical working of the legislative machine in the Norwegian constitution is held by Mr. Laing to be worth all the master-mind nostrums and theories of speculative philosophers, from Aristotle, Bacon, and Jeremy Bentham, down to this pamphleteer. In this constitution there is an effective check upon absolutism, from the legislative body in it having a self-existence independent altogether of the will of the executive power. It is elected and constituted, suo jure, once in three years, without writ or warrant being necessary from the king. It has a check upon anarchy, from the simple principle that no alteration in the constitution can be adopted by the same legislative assembly in which it is proposed. Every alteration must be proposed in one storthing, and taken into consideration, and adopted or rejected, by the next storthing: that is, by a new legislative assembly, after a lapse of three years, during which the proposed alteration has been before the nation at large, and is fully discussed and understood by all. The efficiency of these checks, against absolutism at least, have been pretty well tried in the present reign. But, says this Swedish political philosopher, the second or upper chamber of this legislative body, elected out of the mass of representatives, is an abomination in the Norwegian constitution. He tells us that, in the last storthing, the lagthing, or upper chamber, actually consisted of "peasants,

non-commissioned officers, parish clerks, provincial vaccinators, and the rest lawyers and attorneys," instead of counts and barons, with a pennyworth of red riband at their buttonholes, or of dukes, lords, and bishops. "And is this,” exclaims the Swedish statesman, in aristocratic ire, "the chamber Mr. Laing presumes to compare with the British house of peers?" Mr. Laing would just presume to whisper in his ear, that as an upper or deliberative chamber in the legislature, as a body of legislators of the same class, and with the same interests as the legislatees, and therefore capable of judging of the suitableness of the laws sent up to them from the lower chamber for their consideration, this same upper chamber may well be compared with the British house of peers or the Swedish house of nobles, and be admitted, too, to be, in the principle of its construction, superior to either for legislative purposes, better constituted for wise legislation. But, says this master-mind of sixty-five pages of foolscap, this upper chamber in the Norwegian storthing has no effective veto upon the measures of the lower chamber, or main body of the national representatives - has no obstructive power in the constitution. Mr. Laing would again whisper in his ear, that this is exactly its merit. It has a sufficient suspensive power to prevent hasty enactments, a sufficient deliberative power to examine the bearings and effects of every measure, to amend, to reject, until its own views are again considered in the lower chamber, but has no obstructive power. It cannot, like the British house of peers, or Swedish house of nobles, be made the tool of any aristocratic faction, to obstruct all useful public measures that clash with the interests of a privileged few. It has, in the legislative machinery, a sufficient suspensive, deliberative, amending power, but no obstructive power; and the British house of peers ought to have no more. True it is, that this upper chamber of the Norwegian storthing is composed of very ordinary vulgar fellows-just such people, indeed, as those for whom they are acting. Compare them, forsooth, to the chamber of nobles in a Swedish dieta chamber composed, in one diet, since the acquisition of the Norwegian crown by the Swedish monarch, of sixty-seven ensigns and lieutenants, forty-nine captains, one hundred and five colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and majors, thirty-eight chamberlains, twelve presidents or vice-presidents of departments, twelve prefects, and twenty in various other court offices, in all, four hundred and seventy-five government functionaries, out of a chamber of four hundred and ninety-two members! Yet, Mr. Laing would quietly ask-in a whisper in which of these two legislative chambers will we find men who betrayed the king to whom they had sworn allegiance who sold the crown of their native race of sovereigns which, if the sovereign who wore it was incapable or unworthy to reign, should, on every principle, radical or conservative, have ultimately devolved on his infant heir to a foreigner- and who delivered up to the enemy for money the finest provinces of the realm, the strongest fortresses and positions in Europe?

But this Norwegian constitution is too democratic in one page of this statesmanlike pamphlet, and too little so in the next. He complains that the representative is not elected directly by the people in Norway, but by their election-delegates. It is certainly an evil of this intermediate wheel between the constituency and the representative, that the public takes less interest in the elections than where they appoint their representatives by direct election. This disadvantage of the system of election-men was pointed out by Mr. Laing. He also pointed out its important advantages. It defeats all attempts at bribery, all undue influence over the electors, and is, in reality, the only system, except the vote by ballot, which secures the

purity of election. Time alone that greatest of all political philosophers —can discover whether this system be or be not good. In the peculiar situation of Norway, with a corrupt Swedish aristocracy, eager to use all the royal power and patronage for the end of obtaining an influence in the legislative body of Norway, and an exclusive management of her affairs, the system of electing representatives through election-men works admirably. Influence, intimidation, or bribery, cannot get through a double row of electors, and that of the immediate electors, the election-men, not known, until they are assembled to act for their constituents in the election of a suitable representative. No wonder such a system is too much and too little of a democracy to suit the Swedish nobility, gaping for posts, and places, and public money, from the executive branch of the joint governments. Mr. Laing replies to all the observations upon the theoretical defects of the Norwegian constitution with the simple facts—that the people living under it are undeniably in a state of high and progressive prosperity; their trade, shipping, exports, imports, industry, well-being, and property, rapidly increasing; while the commerce, shipping, and physical and moral condition of Sweden are notoriously not advancing. That their taxes are reduced — their debt paid off-their money good in all countries their credit excellent; and, above all, with the fact that the Norwegian people are content with their constitution as it is, while Sweden and Denmark are both clamorous for a constitution similar to it. How comes it, he asks, that a committee of the Swedish diet, now assembled, recommends a reform of the Swedish constitution, and that one single representative assembly be elected without distinction of privileged classes, and that the second or upper chamber be elected out of and by this representative assembly? This is exactly the principle of the Norwegian constitution; and this is the substance of the report of the committee of the present diet appointed to consider the reforms necessary in the constitution of Sweden. Denmark, also, is at this moment in a state of great excitement: the nation almost peremptorily demanding a constitution from their new sovereign - a constitution similar to that of their late fellow-subjects. And why? Because, while they are pressed to the earth with taxes, and public expenditure, and a wasteful irresponsible government, they see their former fellow-subjects happy and flourishing—a constitution which those who live under it are content with, and those who live around it may and are intent upon obtaining one similar for themselves, may well do without the approbation of the aristocracy of Sweden. But as the prosperity of Norway under its present constitution is not to be denied -is notorious to all Europe - is loudly proclaimed in every sea-port which has relations of trade with that kingdom-our Swedish pamphleteer slily changes his ground, and insinuates, that this undeniable prosperity is not owing at all to the liberal constitution of Norway, to the general diffusion of property among her people, to the wisdom, intelligence, and Joseph Humelike economy of her native legislators in expending the public money, but to Sweden! And why? Because Sweden keeps up a puppet show of a court, a diplomacy, an army of many officers, a navy, and apes the establishments of a great power without the means to support them. Norway, he says, is spared all this expense of establishments for defence or display as a nation, and therefore is flourishing at the expense of Sweden. The Norwegian storthing is certainly wise enough to see that the people of Norway have property to defend, a constitution worth fighting for, and a sovereign to whom, as the head of that constitution, they are as zealously attached as his foolish attempts to subvert it will permit them to be; and, peasants though they be, have political tact enough to estimate much more justly than the

Swedish cabinet their real position among the European states; to see that their safety, independence, and importance, depend not upon the half dozen regiments and frigates which they could maintain, and still less upon an army of noble officers without men, strutting about the streets in idleness, demoralising the town populations, and devouring the means of the people, but upon the commercial relations of their country, which bind it, and its safety, independence, and present constitution, with the interests of European commerce, so that a shock given now to Norway would be felt on every exchange in Europe, from Naples to, Archangel. They act with far more political wisdom, in expending as little as possible of the means of the people in taxes, to support an idle show of military and naval power, and in putting their country in the best state of defence which their real means permit them to do, viz. that in which the people have rights and property to fight for arms in their hands to fight with—and a sufficient but not oppressive military organisation to defend their own rocks against direct invasion; but resting the defence of their national independence, as all secondary powers must do, not upon their own military power, but upon the intimate junction of their interests, industry, independence, and government, with those of greater powers.

Which country is in the best state of defence? Norway, with little or nothing of an army, navy, diplomacy, and no privileged class of nobility, but with its industry, commerce, and welfare binding it up with those of every trading nation in Europe? or Sweden, isolated politically and commercially compared to Norway, and with the hereditary ties of a nation to its sovereign broken by a venal court faction, its crown upon the head of a foreigner, ignorant of the language or civil affairs of the country he governs, its idle dissolute nobility living as useless military, civil, or courtly functionaries upon the means of the people, and looked upon by the people, since their sale of Finland, and of their native race of princes, as quite capable of betraying every interest but their own; and the people themselves, driven by misgovernment and oppressive military arrangements into poverty and its natural consequence, over-multiplication, into drunkenness, and its natural consequence, immorality? Which country is the best governed? — that in which the people are governed by their own laws, and employ their own time, and labour on their own property to their own advantage? or that in which the people are without any real voice in the legislature, are oppressed with taxes to support military and civil establishments altogether ridiculous in the present political state of European powers, their time and labour wasted in military drills and shows for the gratification of a body of mustachioed nobility as officers, numerous enough to command all the armies of a first-rate power, and to exhaust the finances of such a third-rate power as Sweden, even without men to command?

This writer seems to depend upon the gullibility of the English nation, its proverbial ignorance of all foreign countries, and its good-natured readiness to believe whatever is told it by those who are in a situation to know the truth. It enters not into the conception or character of our public to doubt that a broad assertion can be false. This writer broadly asserts that the Swedish people enjoy a free representative constitution; yet at this very moment the committee of the diet itself recommends the abolition of the present constitution, if such a thing as the diet can be called a constitution, and, instead of it, that a fair representation of the people of all classes, and not merely of nobility, clergy, burgesses, and a small portion of peasantry, be given to the nation. He asserts that the press in Sweden is free: if so, why was Captain Lindenberg condemned to death? Why is Mr. Crusenstalpa

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