220 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



Now under the terms of that lease the North American 

 Commercial Company was given the excKisive privilege to 

 kill seals on the seal islands in Bering Sea. In return for 

 that privilege the company agreed to do certain things — 

 agreed to pay the United States Government a certain 

 royalty, a certain amount of money, for each seal skin taken 

 on the islands, and to maintain on the islands houses in 

 which the natives might live. The natives, about 300 of 

 them, on the two islands of St. Paul and St. George, are 

 depended on to do the killing and various other kinds of 

 work connected with the business. 



The company was also required under the terms of the 

 lease to maintain a school on each island and a competent 

 teacher to conduct that school, to maintain upon each island 

 a competent physician to look after the physical welfare of 

 the natives, and to maintain a store on each island at which 

 the natives could buy such things as they wanted. 



The company pursued its pri\ilege, of course, under 

 certain regulations or restrictions established by the Treas- 

 ury Department, to kill seals on the islands. The Govern- 

 ment from year to year determined the maximum numl^er 

 of seals that might be killed, and that quota was not to be 

 exceeded under any circumstances. In the early days the 

 limit was 100,000 skins, of young males in every case, never 

 females and never pups and never old seals. 



But when pelagic sealing began in the late 70"s or early 

 80's, that brought into the question a new factor. So long 

 as killing could be limited to the islands it was easy to 

 regulate the business, to determine how many should be 

 killed, to determine how many should ht saved; just as a 

 man who has a flock of sheep or a herd of cattle could 

 determine how many breeders he ought to reserve each 

 year in order to keep liis herd or flock up to a certain 

 maximum size. That is the way the business was conducted 

 on the islands. Only young males were killed ; and the 

 treasury agents who were upon the islaiids, with their 

 advisors, did the best thev could to determine liow manv 



