ICELAND: Millenary

England keeps a leonine eye on all Scandinavia. George Y’s introspective sister Maud is Queen of Norway and his mother was Denmark’s radiant, regal Alexandra. Last week the most powerful fighting ship on Earth, the 33,900-ton British “superdreadnought” Rodney* hove up to Iceland for a friendly game of Lion & Mouse. The mouse was the trim little Danish orlogsskibe (coast defense ship) Nils Iuel of 4,200 tons. She carried Their Majesties Christian & Alexandrine, King & Queen of Denmark & Iceland, who had come to open amid international jubilation and with Icelandic pomp the “Mother of Parliaments” on her 1,000th birthday.

“Long Live the King!” Disembarking in a dismal drizzle Their Majesties acknowledged rousing shouts of “Lengi Lift Konungur Bor” (“Long Live Our King”) from their Icelandic subjects while not a few of the thousand or more U. S. citizens present (mostly of Icelandic parentage or descent) shouted “Long live the King!” Few minutes afterwards the Swedish kust-pansarfartyg (coast-defense-ship) Oscar II landed H. R. H. Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf. Because a daughter has just been born to his wife, and because just before that their residence burned to the ground, H. R. H. Crown Prince Olav of Norway sent his “regrets” to Iceland last week by the Norwegian Defense minister who arrived on a panserskibe (coast-defense battleship. In a British naval “barge”—and nothing is quite so spanking-smart and snobbish as a British naval barge—there landed from the Rodney that recently created peer, Baron Marks of Woolwich, an intimate friend of James Ramsay MacDonald who accompanied the Prime Minister to Washington (TIME, Oct. 7, et seq.) and an outstanding British consulting engineer, Senior Partner of Marks & Clerk, Engineers & Patent Experts, London.

As an entourage for his friend Mr. MacDonald sent along on the Rodney two M.P.’s and two Members of the House of Lords. One of the latter was peppery Baron Newton who, in a recent furious attack upon the Labor Government for recognizing Russia, called Bolsheviks “un attractive animals which, like boa constrictors and alligators, accept food, only to show their ingratitude by swallowing their keepers” (TIME, March 10).

It was hoped that Baron Newton, out of gratitude for the fun of riding to Ice land and back on the Rodney, will not attack the Prime Minister’s policies quite so furiously in future.

“Miles of Tents.” There are four small, scrupulously clean hotels in Reykjavik, Icelandic capital. Knowing that Iceland would have to accommodate some thou sands of visitors Icelanders erected what U. S. correspondents described expansively last week as “miles and miles of tents” (5,000) on the great “Parliamentary Plain” or Thingvellir, where the “All Speaking” or Althing assembled 1,000 years ago near the “Parliamentary Plain Lake” of Thingvallavatn within sight of a long oval fragment of volcanic lava, the “Mount of Law” or Logberg. English correspondents, meticulous, described the excellent sanitary arrangements in the tents: “Water has been laid on and scullery facilities provided.”

Arriving on a tourist steamer almost a week early. Senator Peter Norbeck of South Dakota, Norse chief of the U. S. Delegation appointed by President Hoover, had been having such Icelandic fun as picnicking with Sigurd Petursson, native wool mill tycoon. As a striking prelude to the millenary celebration Dr. Jon Helgason, Bishop of Iceland, preached a sermon from a pulpit suspended by a rope from the very brink of the mighty Almannagja.

It was the Bishop who some months ago suggested to Minister of Justice Jonas Jonsson, “Iceland’s Dictator,” that a new Police Chief for Reykjavik be imported for the celebration from the U. S. “Whom shall I appoint?” boomed Dictator Jonsson, who was recently the victim of foul insinuations by political rivals that he is insane (TIME, May 19). Replied the Bishop: “I have a relative in the city of Chicago who is an excellent policeman.” Last week this relative, Harold Jonsson, was Chief of Reykjavik’s Police (28 men). Said he: “We’ve got no real crime here. . . . We on the force don’t even carry guns, only little clubs. . . . It’s pie being a policeman in Iceland!” For the duration of the festivities sale of alcoholic beverages was rigidly suspended in Iceland. Quoth Chicago’s Jonsson: “The few drunks we ever have only get that way on a little Spanish wine. I tell you it’s pie!”

Grim Goatbeard. After the Bishop’s sermon last week Their Majesties and a huge assemblage of more than 30,000 Icelanders and visitors sat down on camp-stools in the open, air to hear a great and stirring saga delivered by Speaker Asgeir Asgeirsson of the Althing. He spoke from the very spot on which in 930 A.D. rugged “Grim Goatbeard the Lawgiver” recited from memory the statutes of Iceland which were forthwith copied by scribes and became the written-Law, duly passed as one of the first acts of the “Mother of Parliaments” (Britain’s Parliament was not established until 335 years later).

Repeatedly King Christian clapped his hands to show enjoyment and understanding, for he has learned Icelandic comparatively recently. On a previous visit His Majesty discovered with chagrin that come of his subjects, relying on his comparative ignorance of Icelandic, were commenting more than frankly upon their Sovereign’s appearance in his very presence. Always touchy about his height (6 ft., 5 in.), King Christian has blurted out more than once: “Yes, I am too long! I know I am too long!” Last week he seemed to enjoy himself genuinely and was mightily cheered everywhere. His major work of the week: signing an imposing document marking the entrance of Iceland into the League of Nations on absolute equality with Denmark and other states.

Previously, although united with Denmark only in His Majesty’s person, proud Iceland has keenly “felt” the fact that Danish statesmen were representing her at Geneva. Today jubilant Icelanders have for their 1,000th birthday present the final acknowledgment before all that in every respect they are a sovereign nation. Proud too are all Scandinavians that they alone have set the quarrelsome world an example by almost achieving disarmament. As part of the observances at Reykjavik last week their representatives signed a treaty binding them never to go to war and to accept the arbitrations of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in all mutual disputes. To these advanced peoples, so boldly in the van of Peace, so highly educated, so progressive in politics, police methods, liquor control and social legislation, the grim, tremendous, deadly Rodney might well have seemed as incongruous, as curiously old fashioned as a dinosaur or brontosaurus.

*Cost $36,393,011, upkeep $2,104,185 per year, speed 23 knots, major weapons nine 16-in. guns, armament sufficient to ”withstand the simultaneous explosion of four torpedoes,” designer Sir Eustace Henry William Tennyson D’Eyncourt who during the War was chairman of the British Admiralty Committee which produced the first tank.