240 COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Company, and shall annually report to Conjjress the result of said 

 inquiries, and any and all violations by said Company of the Agree- 

 ment existing between the United States and said Company. 



THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF EXECUTION OF THIS DUTY. 



Though Governor Swiueford succeeded in visiting the 

 Pribylotit" Islands in 1888, the circumstances are practically 

 such that it is ordinarily impossible for the Governor of 

 Alaska to carry out the above provision. The capital of 

 the territory, Sitka, is situated at a distance of about 1,200 

 miles from Unalaska, the nearest place of any importance 

 to the Pribyloff Islands, which lie at a further distance of 

 about 200 miles. There has been no regular means of com- 

 munication between Sitka and Unalaska till 1891, when a 

 monthly mail was for the first time established for a part 

 of the year. Thus, unless by means of some chance vessel, 

 it has been necessary to send any comumnications passing 

 from Sitka to Unalaska, or vice versa, by way of San Fran- 

 cisco, involving a sea transit of some 3,500 miles, while from 

 San Francisco to Unalaska there has again never been any 

 regular mail service. It has thus very naturally happened 

 that the whole of the western part of Alaska has been 



practically beyond the control of the Governor, and 

 281 that the powerful Company leasing the Pribyloft' 



Islands has exercised there an almost independent 

 sway. 



ME. ELLIOTT ON RELATIONS OF GOVERNMENT AND COM- 

 PANY'S AGENTS. 



Mr. H. W. Elliott, though throughout endeavouring to 

 sui^port the proceedings of the Alaska Commercial Com- 

 pany, does not leave the subject of the ambiguous relations 

 between the officers of the Comj^any and Government 

 entirely unnoticed, writing in his official Report: 



Census RoDort There remains an unwritten page in the history of the action of 

 p. 1C7. ' the Govei'umeut towards the ]irotection of seal life on the Pribylov 



Islands, and it is eminently projier that it should be inscribed now, 

 especially so since the authop.of this Memoir was an eye-witness and 

 an actor in the scene. When he first visited the Seal Islands, in 

 1872-73, he was compelled to take passage on the vessels of the Com- 

 pany leasing the islands; compelled, because the Government at that 

 time had no means of reaching the field of action, excejit by the favour 

 and the courtesy of the Alaska Commercial Company. This favour and 

 this courtesy, as might be expected, was always promptly and gener- 

 ously proffered, and has never been alluded to as even an obligation 

 or service rendered the Treasury Department. But, nevertheless, the 

 thought occurred tome at the time, and wassti'engthened into convic- 

 tion by 1874, that this indifl'erence to its own self-respect and failure 

 to support properly the aims of its agents up there should end ; and 

 that the Treasury Department should detail one of its own vessels to 

 visit, transport, and aid its officers on the Pribylov Islands, and also 

 be an actual living evidence of power to execute the law protecting 

 and conserving the same. 



MR. RYAN ON POSITION OF COMPANY'S AGENTS. 



Mr. Ryan, Assistant Government Agent in 1885-86, 

 states : 



H. E., 50th The Company's men are sailors and men they can pick up as best 

 Cong.. 2ncl Sess., they can, and, as I have said before, they have been taught by the 

 p.*215'. "■ ' Government agents not only that everything belongs to them, not only 

 the seal, but the rocks the seal are on. 



