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192
III. CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION Of SWEDEN.
officials: Lord High Steward, Lord Marshal, Lord High Admiral, Lord High
Chancellor, and Lord High Treasurer, and as some of the assessors were to be
found other Councilors of the Realm. The Chancery (Kansliet) was the most
important of the five departments. Besides its own administrative activity, it
had to see to all the secretarial business of the Government, including that of the
other departments.
The kingdom was divided into certain defined administration districts, Lånt,
each under a Governor (Landshöfding). He was to have nothing to do with
military matters; though, in those governments which lay on the extreme borders
of the country, Governors-General might be appointed to exercise military
authority also. The responsibility of officials for their stewardships was determined
by a number of injunctions, which were, however, only partially put into application.
The most important changes made in the administration during the
remainder of the 17th century were: that the number of central departments was
increased, and that, during the period of absolute rule under Charles XI and
Charles XII, the five high offices of state were left vacant. Moreover, the
Councilors of the Realm (Riksråden) were gradually excluded from their share
in the administration of the government departments, these becoming thereby
more independent.
During the so-termed Era of Liberty (1718/72) the administrative
functions centered in the Council (Rådet). The Chancery was the department
where government business was prepared, and the president of that department,
who was at the same time secretary for foreign affairs, was the foremost member
of the Council. The Chancery was now, as at an earlier period, subdivided into
a number of offices, the heads of which, usually entitled Secretaries of State, had
to introduce measures that belonged to the special subdivisions they represented.
During the Gustavian Era (1772/1809), the Council was abolished by the
constitutional revolution of 1789, having already lost much of its consequence.
While the functions of the Council as regarded judicial powers were now entrusted
to a newly established High court of justice, its administrative functions were
for the most part transferred to the Cabinet (Konseljen), as members of which
a number of high state officials were nominated, among them, the Secretaries
of State.
Both during the period of Caroline Absolutism (1682/1718) and the periods
subsequent thereto until the year 1809, occasional commissions for special
branches of the administration had been appointed, whereby business was drawn
away from those departments to the purview of which it really belonged. During the
»Era of Liberty», too, the Riksdag encroached in a variety of other ways on the
administrative domain; thus, for instance, by examining in detail the measures
adopted by the departments and by interfering in the appointments of civil servants.
When the Revolution of 1809 came about, that resulted in the
establishment of the Constitution still in force, no changes of any
importance were made in the administrative machinery. The Council
was not, it is true, revived, but its place was taken by a Ministry or
Cabinet (Statsråd), consisting of nine members, the majority of whom
did not represent any special branch of the administration. Business
was still prepared — with but few exceptions — in the Chancery and
was brought before the Council by the Secretaries of State, who had the
right of being present and voting at their sittings, when matters
belonging to the branch they represented were being discussed. In 1840, this
system was exchanged for the departmental system now in force.
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