FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA IN 1910. 35 



When, however, after 1890, under the lease of the North American 

 Commercial Company, the take of skins was reduced to a few thou- 

 sands annually, the natives faced starvation. Their earnings at this 

 time, at the rate of 50 cents for each skin, were entirely insuflicient. 

 To relieve this situation, the Government did not increase the wages 

 of the natives for taking skins, but, as the reduction of the catch was 

 due mainly to arbitrary restrictions by the Government, furnished 

 an annual appropriation of $19,500 to supplement the natives' 

 earnings for their support. 



This appropriation, while keeping the natives from starving, made 

 an important change in their fiscal relations. Heretofore the native 

 could expend his earnings as he pleased. After the appropriation, 

 however, the earnings were sequestered by the agents, and the natives 

 had no voice whatever in the expenditure of the money for which 

 they toiled. Each native was allotted articles of necessity to a cer- 

 tain amount each week payable from his wages, and after the latter 

 were expended the appropriation was drawn upon at the same rate 

 until another sealing season intervened. 



This practice exists to-day. The natives now receive $1 for each 

 skin taken, in addition to the annual appropriation of $19,500. 

 Their total income from taking seals and foxes, with the appropria- 

 tion, was last year about $34,000, or somewhat more than $100 for 

 each person. 



The system of distribution of these earnings is one of pure com- 

 munism. The native men are divided into about four classes, 

 according to ability in taking seals. The members of each class 

 receive a like sum, those in the first class being given more than 

 those in the second, and so on to the fourth class, the lowest, which 

 embraces apprentices. These sums, whatever they may be, are 

 credited to each native and are drawn upon each week by orders on 

 the store issued by the agent to the head of each family, the amount 

 of the order varying with the size of the family. This plan of com- 

 pensation, while assuring provision for the natives' immediate needs, 

 is highly objectionable when considered from a sociological stand- 

 point, its weakness being that it reduces all to a common level. It 

 prevents that progress that accrues from the cultivation of superior 

 skill or greater self-denial, and makes a virtual almshouse of the 

 Pribilof reservation by dealing with the inhabitants as indigents. 

 It requires willing service of the native, but takes from liim his wage 

 and expends it for his benefit without his consent. Incentive to 

 increased individual eiliciency is lacking because effort to that end is 

 fruitless hi bringing any greater benefit than if it had not been made 



It is reasonable to assume that the Government, while operating 

 on the seal islands for its own profit, at the same time desires to better 

 the condition of the native residents upon whose efforts it must depend 



