REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 245 



on tlioRO islands, the officers .nnd employ^^s of the Alaska Coiiiiiuii'i.al Company, and 

 the present lessees of these islands. These iei)orts are the only ones that have 

 obtained credit in Washington City. All adverse rejiorts of scalers or parties 

 engaged in the fnr trade ontside of the i)o\verfiil nionoixdies Jiave been either 

 igndied or set aside with contempt, 'i'he controversy so far has been between 

 oiganized capital seeking to secnre a monopoly and private traders and fishermen, 

 most of whom are men of small means seeking by their own exertions to secnre a 

 profit. These latter have never combined or formcnl associations for their own pro- 

 tection, so as to have their side of the question fairly considered and discnssed in 

 Washington City. Both parties have been stimulated by greed, and not by a desire 

 for scientific investigation. 



When the Reports of the United States and Royal Commissioners are published 

 enough new facts will be produced to make a material difference between what has 

 been dogmaticallj' and persistently asserted by interested writers in the employ of 

 the Alaska Commercial Company, and the real state of the case, enough to call for 

 a modification of the present stringent Sealing l^aws. 



It is persistently asserted by the lessees of the Pribyloft' Islands that the seals are 

 disappearing, and that they are being exterminated by the sealing schooners, whom 

 careless writers term poachers. Poaching cannot be done where there is no preserve, 

 and the only preserve is on those islands leased by the United States Government 

 to the Sealing Companies. The open sea is not. and cannot be, in any sense a pre- 

 serve. Hence to call sealing-schooners poachers is an evident error which should 

 be corrected. These vessels are not poachers on the Pacific Ocean any more than 

 they were poachers on the Atlantic Ocean before they came around Cape Horn. ^ 



'the full sealing fleet list to the I'Otli June, 1891, amounted to 79 vessels, 47 of which 

 are under the British flag; 30 are under the United States flag. All are of North 

 American V>uild. The British vessels mostly came from iS'ova Scotia; a few were 

 built in British Columbia, and the rest were purchased from citizens of the United 

 States. The American vessels were mostly from Massachusetts, some from San Fran- 

 cisco, and a few were built on Puget Sound. Otlier vessels have been added to the 

 fleet, bnt their names and tonnage I haA^e not been able to ascertain. It is charged 

 by the lessees of the islaiuls that these 79 vessels have destroyed so many seals, and 

 have driven so many ofl' the islands, that they are in danger of being exterminated, 

 and the wailing of these unfortunate capitalists has induced the Governments of the 

 I'nited States and Great-Britain to send their armed cruizers to Behring Sea to put 

 a Slop to the killing of seals by private eTiterprise, so that the lessees of the islands 

 may be i>rotected and the poor seals kept from being utterly exterminated. These 

 specious assertions, urged with eloquent sophistry, have deluded eastern people, and 

 eNjJecially those at Washington City, into a belief that our hard-working fishermen 

 and hunters upon the high seas are working a great wrong to the monopolists and 

 tlie nation at large, and must be suppressed by force. 



Now let us see who is really working an injury fo the monopolizing capitalists, 

 and the real causes why the intelligent fur-seal is leaving the leased rookeries on the 

 Pribylofl' Islands. 



A writer in the London "Weekly Times," of the 12th September, 1891, who 

 175 was in Behring Sea as a reporter on the steamer "Danube" during the past 

 summer, says of the decrease of the seals on the Pribyloff group: 



"The cause of this is, no doubt, the indiscriuiinate slaughter of these animals on 

 the islands by the Alaska Commeicial Company and the present Company's servants, 

 A\ liirh has driven the seals to other p.irts of the sea for breeding, ajid already, the 

 present season, considerable numbers have made their appearance on St. Matthew's 

 Island, where formerly they did not resort, the two islands St. Paul and St. George 

 lieing the great rookeries." 



The seals begin to make their ajipearance in the region about Cape P^'lattery in the 

 latter part of December or the first of January, varying with different seasons. 

 When easterly winds prevail with much snow thev keep well off shore, and do not 

 nake their appearance in great numbers before the middle of February or the first 

 .of March. Last winter was very mild, with but little snow, but the prevailing 

 winds, which were south and south-west, were exceedingly violent, preventing 

 sealing-schooners from doing much hunting. The mildness of temperature, how- 

 ever, with the direction of the prevailing winds, drove the seals toward the coast 

 in incredible numbers. They gradually work up the coast toward Queen Charlotte 

 Island, when the larger portion of the herds move along the Alaskan coast toward 

 Unimak Pass and other western openings into Behring Sea. A portion of these 

 seals, however, pass into Dixon's Entrance, north of Queen Charlotte Island, and 

 into Cross Sound and Cook's Inlet, and do not go to Behring Sea, but have their 

 young on the innumera])]e islands, fiords, and bays in Southern Alaska and Britisb 

 Columbia. These seals arc^ seen in these waters all summer, at the same time of the 

 brci'ding on the rookeries of the Pribylofl' Islands, and are killed by Indians and 

 the skins sold to dealers. The great body of the seals, however, do enter Behring 



