Saga - 1999, Blaðsíða 178

176
HELGIÞORSTEINSSON
Summary
The seasonal migration of labour between fishing centres in the south-
west and farms in the north, west and south of Iceland was disrupted at
the end of the 19th century. A growing number of people from the south-
west began to migrate to the east coast to work in fishing during the sum-
mer when farmers in other parts of the country most needed their help
with haymaking. This movement of people began in around 1880 and
greatly increased during the following two decades, reaching its peak in
1896 when around 1300 people travelled to the east of the country with
the ships which plied the south and east coasts. This migration later
decreased, but fishing from decked sailing vessels in the south-west,
whaling, herring fishing off the north coast and other types of employ-
ment, which depended on a large labour force during the summer
months, grew over the following years.
Increased competition for labour during the summer caused difficulties
in all the major fields of employment. Shortly after the tum of the century,
employment agencies were set up in Reykjavik in order to reach the large
labour force of the town and its surrounding region. Discussions con-
cerning the import of foreign labour in order to combat Iceland's shortage
of manpower began during the last decade of the 19th century. The mod-
els for this were the emigration of Europeans to America, the seasonal
migration of migrant workers in Europe and the stream of Faroese and
Norwegians to Iceland's east coast during the summer months. The most
popular proposals included attracting Faroese and Norwegian workers to
work in Iceland, offering Finns to settle as farmers in Iceland (it was
thought that these hardy people would most easOy adapt to the country's
harsh climate and way of life), and persuading immigrants of Icelandic
origin in North America to return to Iceland.
Two conflicting ideas arose concerning the role of immigrants in
Iceland. On the one hand, most employers were merely concerned with
acquiring workers to alleviate the shortage of labour. On the other hand,
there were those, especially a group of Icelandic intellectuals in Denmark,
led by the influential politician Valtýr Guðmundsson, who were more
concerned with re-settling the abandoned farms in the more remote areas
and making better use of the land in the fertile plains in the south of the
country. These measures, they believed, would lead to population in-
crease.
In 1903, the Icelandic parliament decided to support the immigration of
Nordic workers and settlers, and agreed to grant them land. This propos-
al was reported in Scandinavian newspapers and many inquiries were
received. A year later, a captain by the name of Matthías Þórðarson