62 COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



REPORTS OF COMMITTEES OE CONGRESS. 



At pp. 75 aud 76 of the TTnited States Case reference is 

 made to the Eei)ort of a Committee of Congress, and copi- 

 ous quotations are made therefrom. This lleport, however, 

 is not one made at or about the time of the Treaty, or the 

 acquisition of Alaska, but is that of a Committee of Con- 

 gress which sat in the year 1881) after the present contro- 

 versy had arisen. 



No reference is made in the United States Case to the 

 report of any previous Committee of Congress. Such 

 reports, however, exist, and are of a directly opposite tend- 

 ency. There is, for example, the Eeport mentioned in 

 Bancroft's "History of Alaska'' (p. 595), in the following- 

 terms : 



FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, IN 1868, STATES OBJECTS OF PURCHASE 

 FROM RUSSIA, WITHOUT EVEN MENTIONING THE ACQUISITION OF 

 BEHRING SEA. 



Alaska p. 595. ^^® motives which led the United States Governmeut to purchase 

 them [Russia's American possessions] are thus stated in a report of 

 the committee on foreign atl'airs pul)lished 18th May, 1868: "They 

 "were, tirst, the laudahle desire of citizens of the Pacific coast to share 

 in the prolific fisheries of the* oceans, seas, hays, and rivers of the 

 Western World; the refusal of Russia to renew the Charter of the 

 Russian-American Fur Company in 1866; the friendship of Russia for 

 the United States; the necessity of preventing the transfer, by any 

 possible chance, of the north-west coast of America to an unfriendly 

 Power; the creation of new industrial interests on the Pacific neces- 

 sary to the supremacy of our empire on the sea and land ; and finallj^, 

 to facilitate and secure the advantages of an unlimited American 

 commerce Avith the friendly Powers of Japan and China." 



Again, the Committee of AVays and Means, to which, in 

 1876, was referred a Eesolution of the House of Repre- 

 sentatives, directing an investigation into certain matters 

 relating to the lease by the United States Government to 

 the Alaska Commercial Company, presented a Eeport, from 

 which the following is an extract: 



A COMMITTEE IN 1876, SAYS THAT SEAL ISLANDS WERE NOT CONSID- 

 ERED IN PURCHASE. 



H. E. Ex. Doc, AVhen the proposition to purchase the Alaska Territory from Russia 

 44tli Cong., ist -^.^g before Congress, the opposition to it was very much based on 

 be.ss., o. _ , p. a]jggg(j barrenness and Avorthlessness of the territory to be acquired. 

 It was supposed that though there might be many political rea- 

 71 sons for this addition to the American Pacific possessions, there 

 were not commercial or revenue advantages. The value of those 

 seal islands was vot considered at all. Bussia had derived but little reve- 

 nue from titvm, indeed a sum not sufficient to pay flic contingent expenses of 

 maintaining the official authority. Under our system, however, we have 

 a A'cry different result. 



loJi^censifs Ko" Mr. H. W. Elliott, in his official Eeport on the seal 

 port, 1881 islands ol" Alaska, writes as follows upon this point: 



Mil. H. W. ELLIOTT, IN 1881, REPORTS THAT THE VALUE OF Till: FUR- 

 SEAL INDUSTRY WAS NOT TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT IN THE PUR- 

 CHASE FROM RUSSIA. 



"The Seal StraN(;e kinorance OF THEIR VALUE IN 1867. — Considering that 

 Lslauds of Alas- this return [that accruing from the fur-seal industry] is the only one 

 ta." '.>.v Henry jjjade to the Government by Alaska, since its transfer, and that it ivaa 

 inctjii '^(^Tov'ern- ^'^'^^''' '"'>'^'*^ 'into account, at first, hy the most ardent advocates of the pur- 

 men't ' Printing chaxe of L'ussian- America, it is in itself highly creditable and interest- 

 Office, 1881, pp. ing; to Senator Sumner the friends of the ac(iuisition of this territory 

 ^8, 69. jjj 1^67 delegated the task of making the principal argument in its 



