How Norwegian He are

Even though [Norwegian] requests for equal privileges in diplomatic representation had been mooted in the Storting as early as 1831, efforts to settle this disagreement began in earnest in the 1880s and lasted for two decades. The successes and setbacks of twenty years of negotiations need not be detailed for the purposes of the argument. What is significant is that while the Norwegian delegation proposed various reforms of the foreign ministry, it consistently sought a solution within the union's [i.e., the union of Sweden and Norway] institutions. It was not until the perceived rejection of these efforts by the Swedish government in 1904 that the Norwegians became convinced that their needs would be best served by achieving independent statehood.

- Viva Ona Bartkus, The Dynamic of Secession: An Analytical Framework, pp.170-1. Cambridge University Press, 1999