The Iceland year-book - 01.01.1926, Page 5

PREFACE.
There has for a very long time been an undoubted
need for a handy book supplying the foreign inquirer
with concise, and yet at the same time reasonably com-
prehensive, all-round information concerning Iceland.
Since the re-establishment of the country’s political inde-
pendence in 1918 this need has, however, been more widely
felt than ever, especially by the Danish Consulates and
Legations which safeguard Icelandic interests abroad. For the
Icelandic Government there has, indeed, been an element
of humiliation in the fact that the officials of these in-
stitutions— generally without the advantage of intimate
personal knowledge of Icelandic affairs and conditions, but
always anxious to assist and benefit Iceland in every
possible way — should have been frequently compelled to
make gentle complaints of the handicap thus put on them.
In 1922 an occasion arose which imperatively demanded
that the matter should immediately be taken in hand, and
the Government issued, in Icelandic, English and Spanish,
a small booklet written by Mr. Pjetur A. Olafsson (P.A.O.)
An edition of 5.000 copies was speedily exhausted, and after
the booklet had been unobtainable for eighteen months, it was
arranged between the Government and Mr. Helgi Zoega, that
the latter should bring out a new and revised edition. Of
this new edition 5,000 were accordingly published in May
last year, but in February this year the booklet was again
out of print.
In the meantime the Government and Mr. Zoega had
conjointly taken steps for the production of a new annual
publication to supercede the previous booklet. The editing of
this publication, THE ICELAND YEAR-BOOK, was entrusted
to me, and (in so far as the narrow compass available would
permit) 1 have endeavoured to gather into it such informa-
tion as I thought most likely to be of help or interest to
those who may consult it. In this work I have had the
active co-operation of numerous Government and Public