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Why did Sweden let Norway go so easily? It was there that Edward VII helped the Norns. Fridtjof Nansen could not have brought the pressure upon Stockholm which London brought. The new King of Norway as one of his first, most gracious acts appointed Explorer Nansen First Minister of the Kingdom of Norway to the Court of St. James's.
In Oslo last week King Haakon and Queen Maud had among their Jubilee guests his elder brother, King Christian X of Denmark; and Prince George, youngest son of her brother King-Emperor George V. Beginning with a simple, solemn Lutheran service in Our Saviour's Church, the Jubilee became joyous as Their Majesties left the church amid a rousing 21-gun salute, clattered off to the Palace where King Haakon addressed his people and all Scandinavia by radio.
"Geographical obstructions* have thus far prevented the Queen and me from making the acquaintance of our whole people," said Haakon VII, "but I say with conviction that in no part of our country do the Queen and I any longer feel as strangers."
Queen Maud spends much of her time in her native land (Crown Prince Olav of Norway was born in England, went to Oxford). But emphatically the Norwegian people do not consider their Royal Family "strangers." Money for the Jubilee celebration was unhesitatingly voted by the municipality of Oslo, Socialist though it is.
If Their Majesties reverse the usual royal tactics of courting popularity and employing journalists to puff them, if King Haakon with excessive modesty is still self-conscious in Norway after reigning securely for a quarter-century, if Queen Maud goes about her shopping in Oslo completely unattended and sometimes unrecognized, this strange royal conduct seems to be exactly what Norwegians like. A quaint, possibly significant scrapbook is kept by Their Majesties. She pastes into the section headed We Never Did or Said This newsclippings of that sort. The rest of the scrapbook, much the larger section, bears mute but gracious royal witness to the high average accuracy of newsfolk.
*So prodigiously mountainous is Norway that only 3.2% of the entire country is arable.