FUR-SEAL HERD OF ALASKA. 



225 



Lucas admits that he did want 

 a new lease made on the Russian 

 plan. 



Dr. Lucas. The cessation of killing on 

 laud would release an undue number of 

 males that would do no good, that would 

 simply disturb the rookeries and be a 

 dead loss commercially. Government 

 control has always seemed to us the best 

 method, as it has proven on the Russian 

 islands, where the Government has the 

 absolute power to fix the number and 

 make a closed season at any time it wishes. 



This recommendation was unanimously 

 agreed to by the advisory board, fur-seal 

 service (Dr. David Starr Jordan, chair- 

 man; Dr. Leonard Stejneger, Dr. Frederic 

 A. Lucas, Mr. Edwin W. Sims, Dr. 

 Charles H. Townsend), the fur-seal board 

 (Dr. Barton Warren Evermann, chairman; 

 Mr. Walter I. Lembkey, and Mr. Millard 

 0. Marsh), the Commissioner of Fisheries 

 (Hon. George M. Bowers), the Deputy 

 Commissioner of Fisheries (Dr. Hugh M". 

 Smith), assistant fur-seal agent (H. D. 

 Chichester), and special scientific expert 

 (Mr. George A. Clark). (Hearing No. 12, 

 p. 713, May 16, 1912.) 



But EUiott shows the com- 

 mittee that such a lease adds to 

 gain of lessees at public cost and 

 loss. 



Mr. Elliott. That will not be neces- 

 sary; I will just pass on. The terms of 

 this lease, which he proposed, increased 

 the profits of the lessee and added to the 

 cost of the Government. 



The lessees are relieved of the present 

 cost to them of a great many things — 

 schools, doctors — their entire plant is 

 purchased; they pay no more taxes; all 

 costs are taken fi-om them; and yet they 

 are to get all of the skins taken for the 

 same cost that they did in the old lease. 



Dr. Evermann. That is not correct. 



The Chairman. The lease will speak 

 for itself. 



Mr. Elliott. The lease speaks to that 

 effect, because there has never been an 

 hour since the islands have been leased 

 that the Government has not had absolute 

 control over the lessees and the killing. 

 All this twaddle about the "Government 

 getting control of the killing" is mere 

 dust and verbiage; there has never been 

 an hour since the first lease was made in 

 1870 when an officer of the Government 

 up there has not had the power to stop the 

 killing down to a single seal, and hold it 

 there — what more power could you have 

 under any "new lease." or any such con- 

 dition? I exercised that power in 1890, 

 and no man dare dispute it and does not 

 dispute it to this day. 



The Chairman. Wliy can it not be 

 disputed? 



Mr. Elliott. Because no man has set 

 aside my findings of fact that summer; 

 they were stopped; and nobody since has 

 attempted to interfere with it, and no 

 Secretary of the Treasury has ever said I 

 did wrong. Over at Paris, in 1893, our 

 agents said to the tribunal that my action 

 in 1890 was a good thing, and they pa- 

 raded there with great satisfaction the 

 fact that our Government had stopped 

 this slaughter on the islands to save that 

 life, and they wanted Great Britain to 

 intervene to stop it in the sea on their side. 

 (Hearing No. 14, p. 993, July 29, 1912.) 



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