136 BULLETIN OP THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



It having been demonstrated tliat a large family under the same roof can live more cheaply per 

 capita than a small one, a readjustment of amounts was made, deducting a certain sum from the large- 

 family allotments and adding it to those of small families. In this way a final adjustment of allotments 

 was reached, giving about $5 weekly to a family of two, and about $7.50 weekly to a family of six or 

 seven. 



Having thus established the amount which each family may spend weekly, issues of food and such 

 clothing as could be purchased out of the allowance were then made on Saturday of each week to the heads 

 of families, each head being given an order for such supplies as he wished not exceeding his allowance, 

 which order when taken to the store was filled and the merchandise represented thereon given to the 

 person presenting the order. 



The emergency fund, already mentioned, was used to meet expenditures not contemplated in the 

 regular allowance, such as occur in cases of death, sickness, marriage, childbirth, etc. 



In this way the amount available for support of the natives is expended, not in cash, as stated, but 

 in merchandise itself. The amount is just about enough to support the population without want. It 

 reaches a little more tlian $100 per capita. Everytliing to eat, to wear, and to keep the fires burning 

 has to be transported over 2 ,000 miles, and the food is mostly in tins. Nothing edible except seal flesh 

 can be obtained locally. It can be realized, therefore, that if the fund for natives' support is barely 

 enough to provide the actual necessities of each person, little can be done toward encouraging and 

 compensating extra effort or otherwise alleviating the objectionable features of communistic life in 

 general. 



Where a number of persons share equally in the distribution of a general fund , as these natives do , the 

 natural tendency of each is to take and use the whole of that share without regard to whether it is needed 

 or not. There is no inducement for a native to strive through self-denial to exist upon less than his 

 share from the general fund when such abstention would result simply in increasing the share of his 

 less provident neighbor. The whole tendency of a scheme of this character is to produce an attitude of 

 carelessness in the use of communal resources — in short, to create that attitude of mind which says: 

 "As there is no reward for economy, let's get all we can. The other fellow will get it if we don't." 



EXPERIMENTAL PLAN TO INDUCE THRIFT AND SELF-RELIANCE. 



This tendency toward shiftfessness, which is an inevitable result of these peculiar circumstances, 

 has long been recognized, and efforts have been made to palliate it at least. In 1911 a plan was put in 

 operation designed to induce the natives to save at least a small portion of tlieir earnings. It was based 

 upon the general principle that by reducing weekly and other issues of supplies to a minimum an unex- 

 pended balance would be created, which balance at the year's end was to be distributed in cash among 

 the earners according to tlieir proficiency as workers. If even from a weekly allowance the native saved 

 something, that saving was to be given him in cash at once. It was hoped he could be induced to open 

 savings accounts with cash thus obtained, or at least to use it in purchasing some article not otherwise 

 obtainable that would increase his happiness and comfort. 



This scheme was placed in operation on St. George during the winter of igii-12. The results from 

 a careful following of the plan are interesting. At the end of tlie first month in which the native men were 

 informed that such savings as they made from tlieir weekly allowances for family supplies would be 

 paid to them in cash more than half the families in the village drew cash savings tlius derived, the sums 

 varying from $1 to as much as $8 or $9. They continued to do thus during each remaining month in the 

 year, almost every family saving sometliing out of the amount allowed for its support. 



Careful inquiries into the motives governing the making of these savings developed some interesting 

 points. It seemed, on the whole, that the main object of the native was not to hoard the cash thus 

 obtained by saving but, on the other hand, to get possession of the cash itself, which in many instances 

 he at once took to the store to expend for perhaps tlie very articles he had denied himself in order to 

 make the saving. Some few, of course, used tlie cash to purchase in San Francisco articles which could 

 not have been issued to them had they not the cash. No savings accounts were created. If any sums 

 were saved, they were secreted in the natives' houses. 



Some of the natives who made the largest savings had previously complained that their allowances 

 were too small; those who have always been thrifty, however, redoubled their efforts to save, increasing 

 their hoards regularly everj' month. But it was found that, to make these monthly savings, in some 



