It was on this day in 1814, at the little inland town of Eidsvoll some forty miles north of Oslo that the Norwegian national assembly promulgated the fundamental law grundlov), which has since been altered in detail at various times, upon which the constitution of Norway rests. Earlier in that year Norway had been ceded to Sweden by Denmark, with the sanction of the Great Powers who were privy to the scheme. That union continued until June 7, 1905, when it was dissolved and Norway achieved full autonomy. Consequently, May 17 has come to be looked upon as a national holiday, the anniversary of Constitution Day. It is well that such a day should be remembered in times like these, for they are landmarks in the history of a brave people, and an encouragement of faith in the ultimate liberal tion of their country. There are two classes of Norwegians to whom the thoughts of many must turn on this day, those suffering beneath the brutality of the Nazis in their home country, and those abroad, forced to look upon the iniquities perpetrated upon their fellow countrymen, wishing that they could be with them in their time of trial, Mr. Trygve Lie, Norwegian Foreign Minister, in a recent article to the "Evening Standard" wrote For the time being, however, it is our people at home who are having to fight at close grips with the German invaders and their Quisling puppets. It is a hard and dangerous fight, because it must be conducted by an unarmed people against an occupation power which has every modern weapon at its command; yet it is a fight which is carried on unceasingly without flinching.
Think of the courage of those members of the Supreme Court of Norway, who resigned in a body rather than allow our proud Nor. wegian traditions of justice to be prostituted to the contemptible chicanery of Nazi Diktats! Those men knew that henceforth they would be marked men, their every movement spied on by the Gestapo and its Quisling lackey the concentration camp, and perhaps the e: ecutioner's axe waiting ready for the first false step—yet they could do no other.
For there is something which we Norwegians will never stand, and that is interference with our long-standing rights of self-government and independent initiative. Nowhere in the world could the Fuehrer-prinzip have less chance of success than in Norway.
Those are the bold words of a Minister of a bold people,—"There is something which we Norwegians will never stand and that is interference with our long-standing rights of self-government and independent initia-ive."
There is a declaration that the Norwegians in their resistance to the Germans are animated by precisely the same motives which led the democracies into war with the most evil system of government the civilized world has ever seen. That resistance in Norway itself, just as much as by the Norwegians in other parts of the world is real, so real that it is giving the Germans cause for much anxiety. Today in Norway the loyal people are fighting a silent war; it is none the less a crucial one for the whole struggle against Naziism, for Norway is one of the princi: experimental grounds for the "new order." But Hitler is losing the battle. Not only is Quisling, that national Judas Iscariot, an object of contempt, but the German soldiers, -of whom there are 300,000 in Norway, are being demoralized by icy hostility and mockery wherever they go.
In Britain the Norwegian Government functions, young men of Norway are training for the time when they will have the opportunity of meeting the Germans again. The Norwegian Navy plays its part in the fleets of the Allies, and the mercantile marine is worthily helping in the defence of democracy. Norwegians throughout the world are doing their utmost to support the only Government which they care to know. Inspired as they are with loyalty to their King, and to all those ideals which free men hold so dear they are carrying on a struggle in a manner which demands the admiration of the whole world, save those people bemused by the false doctrines of Hitler. In a recent speech, Crown Prince Dav said "If we who are beyond her (Norway's) borders are now the ones more able to plan actively for the day of emancipation, our comrades back home are those who must bear the even heavier burden of preserving the Norwegian way of life under the most hopeless circumstances." It is to those Norwegians at home and abroad that the felicitations of their Allies will go on this historic day. with the firm confidence that the time will come when Norway, together with the other victorious Allies, will again come into her own.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.