Mímir. Icelandic institutions with adresses - 15.12.1903, Síða 86

76 NOTES ON ICELANDIC MATTERS
on the budget, during the sessions of the Althing just closed,
the chairman of the committee on finance of the lower house
contrasted the outlay of the country in the financial period
1902—1903 (two years) with that of 1882—1883. Twenty years
ago the amount appropriated at a single session or term of
the Althing was 800,000 crowns; the amount voted by the
recent one was 1,668,000. As to the items, the largest one,
the sum expended for the development of the country’s resources,
principally agriculture and the fisheries, is twenty times larger
now than then; that assigned to the post, to roads and to
other means of communication in and around the island, is
four times as great; that devoted to the maintenance of 42
■ district physicians, and to hygienic purposes, is thrice as great,
and to common schools nearly three times as large. Entirely
new items are a small appropriation for the advancement of
art, being scholarships for study abroad; and the very liberal
one for the planting of forests, that is, to continue the experi-
ments now making, both in the north and the south, on a
large scale by foreign experts. Taking all grades and all classes
of schools, the sums applied, in one shape or another, to
education and to the advancement of science and letters (in-
cluding libraries, collections, popular enlightenment and various
subjects of research) form, as usual, nearly or quite one fourth
of the budget. Iceland has no debt; on the other hand, she
has, invested in valuable securities, a reserve fund of nearly
2,000,000 crowns, of which the interest is a part of her annual
receipts, although the principal may be drawn upon in cases
of emergency. — In addition to the National Bank (Landsbanki),
established at Reykjavik in 1886, which, with every year, has
increased both its domestic and foreign transactions, and its
deposits, besides having built itself a handsome edifice in the
capital, the Althing authorized a second important bank (Is'
landsbanki), with a capital of 2,000,000 crowns, which may be
increased to 3,000,000. It is to have the right to issue paper