THE AMERICAN-SC AN DIN AVI AN REVIEW 
229 
it ever will be. For the officials of Iceland are as a rule not abstainers. 
Furthermore, they are human—a point often overlooked, unfortu¬ 
nately enough. Consequently they are unlikely to be very zealous 
in enforcing a law which if strictly complied with would prevent them 
from obtaining intoxicants. In America such a situation could easily 
be remedied if the local constituency so desired. The wet officials 
would fail of reelection; dry officials would be elected in their places, 
and the law would thenceforward be enforced. In Europe, where 
the officials are appointed for life, such a remedy is obviously imprac¬ 
ticable. In truth, there is no remedy so long as the present method 
of choosing officials is adhered to, and there is no likelihood of any 
change being made. It would seem Iceland’s wisest course, there¬ 
fore, to repeal the law and in future to follow the British custom of 
considering only such legislative proposals as may be recommended 
by the government. 
We have seen that Iceland, like the other countries of Europe, 
is ruled by a bureaucracy, i. e., a body of appointed officials holding 
office in life tenure. This is in marked contrast to the United States, 
which is governed for the most part by elected officials holding office 
for short terms. In the one case, the traditional freedom of the 
bureaucracy from popular control has been maintained, while the tra¬ 
ditional authority of the Crown is no longer exercised, so that the 
officials, in theory servants of the people, are in practice their masters. 
In the other case, the responsibility of the officials to the people is 
insured by frequent elections, but bureaucratic independence enjoys 
no special legal safeguards. The present writer confesses a prefer¬ 
ence for the American system, in spite of its manifest drawbacks. 
However, it would be idle to deny that the average Icelander is rea¬ 
sonably free, and that he may well be justified in sacrificing a marginal 
increment of democracy for the sake of greater governmental effi¬ 
ciency—if he gets it. 
In the foregoing much has been made of officialdom, because of 
the position of dominance which the official holds in Icelandic life. 
However, the various groups engaged in production and distribution 
of course likewise require special consideration. Of these the most 
important is the peasantry, on whose prosperity in the last resort that 
of the nation depends. As the nature of the soil and climate prevents 
the cultivation of cereals, and only potatoes and turnips flourish in 
the vegetable gardens, the peasants are forced to depend almost exclu¬ 
sively on their flocks and herds for support. Sheep-raising is their 
mainstay, though a certain amount of cattle-raising and dairying is 
carried on, and surplus ponies are sold off from time to time. The 
Icelandic sheep, however, is not a high grade animal, and the margin 
for improvement by breeding is slight, as only a hardy sheep can 
flourish under the climatic conditions prevailing. Furthermore, mar- 
