THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 385 



carry out. The character of tlio leading men among them is enough to assure the public that 

 the business is iu responsible hands and in the wire of persons who will use every effort for its 

 preservation and its perpetuation, as it is so plainly their best end to serve. Another great 

 obstacle to the succi-ss of the business, if controlled entirely by the Government, would be encoun- 

 tered in disposing of the skins after they had been brought down from the islands. It would not 

 do to sell them up there to the highest bidder, since that would license the sailing of a thousand 

 ships to be present at the sale. The rattling of their anchor-chains and the scraping of their keels 

 on the beaches of the two little islands would alone drive every seal away and over to the Russian 

 grounds in a remarkably short space of time. The Government would therefore need to offer them 

 at public auction in this country, and it would be simply history repeating itself the Government 

 would be at the mercy of any well organized combination of buyers. The agents conducting the 

 sale could not counteract the effect of such a combination as can the agents of a private corpora- 

 tion, who may look after their interest in all the markets of the world in their own time, and in 

 their own way, according to the exigencies of the season and the demand, and who are supplied 

 with money which they can use, without public scandal, in the manipulation of the market. On 

 this ground I feel confident in stating that the Treasury of the United States receives more money, 

 net, under the system now in operation than it would by taking the exclusive control of the busi- 

 ness. Were any capable Government officer supplied with, say, $100,000, to expend in " working 

 the market," and intrusted with the disposal of 100,000 seal-skins wherever he could do so to the 

 best advantage of the Government, and were this agent a man of first-class business ability and 

 energy, I think it quite likely that the same success might attend his labor in the London market 

 that distinguishes the management of the Alaska Commercial Company. But imagine the cry of 

 fraud and embezzlement that would be raised against him, however' honest he might be! This 

 alone would bring the whole business into positive disrepute, and make it a national scandal. As 

 matters are now conducted, there is no room for any scandal not one single transaction on the 

 islands but what is as clear to investigation and accountability as the light of the noon-day sun; 

 what is done is known to everybody, and the tax now laid upon by the Government and paid into 

 the Treasury every year by the Alaska Commercial Company yields alone a handsome rate of 

 interest on the entire purchase money expended for the ownership of all Alaska. 



It is frequently urged with great persistency, by misinformed or malicious authority, that the 

 lessees can and do take thousands of skins in excess of the law, and this catch in excess is shipped 

 sub rosa to Japan from the Pribylov Islands. To show the folly of such a move on the part of the 

 company, if even it were possible, I will briefly recapitulate the conditions under which the skins 

 are taken. The natives themselves of Saint Paul and Saint George do, in the manner I have indi- 

 cated, all the driving and skinning of the seals for the company. No others are permitted or asked 

 to land upon the islands to do this work, as long as the inhabitants of the islands are equal to it. 

 They have been equal to it and they are more than equal to it. Every skin taken by the natives 

 is counted by themselves, as they get 40 cents per pelt for that labor ; and at the expiration of 

 each day's work in the field, the natives know exactly how many skins have been taken by them, 

 how many of these skins bve been rejected by the company's agent, because they were carelessly 

 cut and damaged in skinning usually about three-fourths of 1 per cent, of the whole catch and 

 they have it recorded every evening by those among them who are charged with the duty. Thus, 

 were 101,000 skins taken instead of 100,000 allowed by law, the natives would know it as quickly 

 as it was done, and they would, on the strength of their record and their tally, demand the full 

 amount of their compensation for the extra labor ; and were any ship to approach the islands at 

 any hour these people would know it at once, and would be aware of any shipment of skins that 

 SEC. v, VOL. ii 25 



