Politics
His acute intelligence and his aloofness from the dynastic considerations affecting most European sovereigns gave the king considerable weight as an arbitrator in international questions. At the request of the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States in 1889 he appointed the chief justice of Samoa, and he was again called in to arbitrate in Samoan affairs in 1899.
In 1897 he was empowered to appoint a fifth arbitrator if necessary in the Venezuelan dispute, and he was called in to act as umpire in the Anglo-American arbitration treaty that was quashed by the United States Senate. He won many friends in the United Kingdom by his outspoken and generous support of Britain at the time of the Second Boer War (1899–1902), expressed in a declaration printed in The Times of the 2 May 1900, when continental opinion was almost universally hostile.
He was the 1,027th Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in Spain and the 774th Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1881.
During his time as King the Office of Prime Minister was instituted with Louis De Geer as the first holder of this new position. Among the prime minister`s during the reign of Oscar the most known and powerful was Erik Gustaf Boström who became very trusted by Oscar. Boström was given free hands by Oscar to select his own ministers without much regal involvement. It was an arrangement that furthered the road to parlamentarism.
Read more about this topic: Oscar II Of Sweden
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.”
—Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)
“We are naïve and moralistic women. We are human beings. Who find politics a blight upon the human condition. And do not know how one copes with it except through politics.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)