Mímir. Icelandic institutions with adresses - 15.12.1903, Side 85

NOTES ON ICELANDIC MATTERS
75
perhaps* in part, owing to her self-imposed lack of representation
in the Danish parliament, that she has so little to say in
reference to affairs common to the two divisions of the kingdom.
She pays, however, the salaries of all her officials, the cost of
all her public institutions and public works, and the larger
! share of the expenses; of the postal service, which connects her
with Copenhagen and the continent. The old governor-general’s
house in Reykjavik is to be refitted for government offices,
while a new official residence is to be erected for the “minister,”
who in Iceland becomes the visible head of the state, and
who is to be aided by an under-secretary and three chiefs of
departmental bureaus. By the new constitutional amendments
the two houses of the Althing are to be slightly enlarged.
The people will hereafter elect 34 members to the lower house,
of whom 8 are to be selected by the chamber to sit in the
upper house, thus leaving 26 to form the lower body; to these
8 the king adds by appointment 6 others, so that the upper house
thus consists of 14 members (formerly 12, of whom 6 were desig-
nated by the crown). The Althing, as before, will meet every two
years unless called together oftener by the king. On the whole,
the effect of the new measures will be to accentuate Iceland’s
internal independence of Danish control, rather than to enhance it.
; As these pages are printing, it is announced that the new
“minister” is Mr. Hannes Hafstein, a member of the Althing i
and prefect (syslumaSur) of IsafjarSarsysla. Mr. Hafstein is a j
person of sterling ability, and has published a volume of ad- ]
tnirable verse. Perhaps no better appointment could have been I
suggested.
Iceland’s present Progress. — It seems not yet to be 1
understood in England and America that Iceland has now
entered upon a period of marked progress, the result — perhaps
somewhat slow in coming — of a generation of self-dependence, j
which has forever put an end to the foreign misrule of which [
she was so long the unhappy victim. In one of the debates