REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 33 



97. A point, however, of grave but unrecognized impor- 

 tance, is tbe direct influence on the sealing industry of the 

 market for seal-skins. It is necessary to remember tbat 

 the requirements of this market may from time to time 

 altogether alter the regulations necessary. In the Atlantic 

 hair seal fishery, for instance, the international regulations 

 became subject to the new requirements of a process by 

 which the hair of newly-born seals became commercially 

 valuable. Again, the actual price of the skins at any par- 

 ticular period depends largely upon the uncertain require- 

 ments of fashion; and it is known that the Alaska Com- 

 mercial Company, recognizing this fact when lessees of the 

 Pribylofif Islands, by various more or less direct methods, 

 did much to popularize and increase the nuirket value of 

 the seal-skins, of which in the earlier years of their lease 

 they held a practical monopoly. 



98. To render this point perfectly clear, it is only neces- 

 sary to quote the following exi)ressions from the report of 

 the Congressional Committee of 187G on the Alaska Com- 

 mercial Company: — "Every art and appliance and nuich 

 money have been expended in the cultivation of a taste for 

 seal-skin furs, which the Alaska Commercial Company had 

 almost the exclusive control over. ... By placing on 

 sale a larger number of skins than was required the i^rices 

 obtained would be lessetied, and the popular estimate of 

 this luxury depreciated, so that its present value would be 

 endangered and a change of fashion probably effected, 

 diverting it to some other fur, which might ruin the trade 

 altogether." 



99. The high price obtainable for the skins in recent 

 years has, however, been in itself a principal cause of the 

 increased activity in killing and hunting which now ap- 

 pears to threaten the industry. If, for any reason, the 

 price of seal-skins should fall below, or even nearly to, the 

 amount of the Government tax (10 dol. 25 c.) payable on 

 skins under the new lease of the Pribylofif Islands, then, on 

 the one hand, the lessees woidd no longer find it remuner- 

 ative to continue taking- seals on shore, and, on the other, 

 the profits of seahng at sea would become so much reduced 

 as to discourage further enterprise in this direction. 



100. It would thus appear that, as matters stand, a "lost^ Regj^y^ations 

 influential factor in respect to the fate of the fur-seal fishery 



is one altogether removed froni natural facts of seal life, 

 and that either the demand for seal-skins as a whole, or 

 the special size or kind of skins called for by the market, 

 may at any time be changed in such a manner as to intro- 

 duce new determining factors in the industry. It is there- 

 fore evident that, in a matter of such considerable import- 

 ance, some additional and possibly counteracting system 

 of regulation of an intelligent kind is desirable; that this 

 should include a consideration of the industrial features of 

 the case as well as of those relating to the fur-seal as an , 

 animal, and should be susceptible of constant adaptation to 

 fho changing requirements of the problem, 

 B s, PT VI — ~3 



