51 



"After the acrjuisifciou of Alaska the Goveriiineut of the United 

 States, through competent agents working under the direction of the 

 best ex j)erts, gave careful attention to the improvement of the seal fish- 

 eries. Proceeding by a close obedience to the laws of nature, and rig- 

 idly limiting the number to be annually slaughtered, the Government 

 succeeded in increasing the total number of seals and adding corre- 

 spondingly and largely to the value of the fisheriCvS. In the course of a 

 few years of intelligent and interesting experiment the number that 

 could be safely slauglitered was fixed at 100,000 annually. The com- 

 pany to which the administration of the fisheries was intrusted, by a 

 lease from this Government, has paid a rental of 150,000 per annum, 

 and in addition thereto $2.C2i per skin for the total number taken. 

 The skins were regularly transported to London to be dressed and i^re- 

 pared for the markets of the world, and the business had grown so 

 large that the earnings of English laborers, since Alaska was trans- 

 ferred to the United States, aniount in the aggregate to more than 

 112,000,000. The entire business was then conducted peacefully, law- 

 fully, and profitably — profitably to the United States, for the rental was 

 yielding a moderate interest on the large sum which this Government 

 had paid for Alaska, including the rights now at issue; profitably 

 to the Alaskan Company, which, under governmental direction and 

 restriction, had given unwearied i)ains to the care and development of 

 the fisheries; profitably to the Aleuts, who were receiving a fair pecu- 

 niary reward for their labors, and were elevated from semi-savagery to 

 civilization and to the enjoyment of schools and churches provided for 

 their benefit by the Government of the United States, and, last of all, 

 profitably to a large body of English laborers, who had constant employ- 

 ment and received good wages. 



"This, in brief, was the condition of the Alaska fur seal fisheries down 

 to the year 18S0. The precedents, customs, and rights had been estab- 

 lished and enjoyed either by Russia or the United States for nearly a 

 century. The two nations were the only powers that owned a foot of 

 land on the continents that bordered, or on the islands included within, 

 the Bering waters where the seals resort to breed. Into this peaceful 

 and secluded field of labor, whose benefits were so equitably shared by 

 the native Aleuts of the Pribilof Islands, by the United States, and by 

 England, certain Canadian vessels in 1886 asserted their right to enter 

 and by their ruthless course to destroy the fisheries, and with them to 

 destroy also tlie resulting indu.slrics whicli are so valuable. The 



