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of trade, and the Royal Faeroe Company was dissolved in
the years 1856-1858; staff and crews were dismissed, and
ships and establishments sold. New times of technological
advances – e.g. steamships – made it easier to supply and
connect the islands to Denmark and elsewhere. The islands
finally had their own shipping and fishing companies. It has
been claimed that the trade monopoly was crippling to the
wealth and development of the islands – a legacy of the
liberal belief that free trade is always best – but the mo-
nopoly secured supplies and goods from Denmark in good
as well as bad times, and for a long time the majority of the
people in the islands rejected free trade as this also meant
more unstable and less diversified supplies, and less steady
exports of their own products.
Udsigt mod Mykines. Foto: Morten Hahn-Pedersen.
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