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 wellbeing, 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 consti

tute 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 sixtyfive 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 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, and 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.

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 selfexistence 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 pro. posed 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

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, and better constituted for wise legislation. But, says this master-mind of sixtyfive 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,