APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 313 
this privilege the fee to the United States Government is the small sum of 296,286 
dol. 82 ¢., being the exact average amount paid by the Alaska Commercial Company, 
and to be paid by them each year, as claimed by the Alaska Commercial Company, 
during the twenty years of their lease. This is taken from the Alaska Commercial 
Company’s own statement in their reply to Governor Swineford’s charges (see p. 12 
of that volume)—and these figures cannot be disputed by them—thus enabling the 
Company to make a clear profit of not less than 1,000,000 to 1,250,000 dollars each 
year off the seal islands alone. 
When they come to figure that this has been going on for nearly twenty years, it 
is easy to explain how they have controlled all the trade of this vast section. 
Evidently a strong effort is being made by certain parties that the leasing of the 
fur-seal islands shall be at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury to say 
who is the proper person to lease these islands to, and that a set sum shall be the 
specified amount for this lease. Below we copy an article cut from one of the daily 
papers, entitled— 
The Seal Fisheries. 
(An interesting Report presented to the House.) 
WASHINGTON, January 29. 
Representative Dunn, from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 
to-day presented the results of the investigation by the Committee into the fur-seal 
fisheries of Alaska, with special reference to whether the Contract giving the Alaska 
Commercial Company the right to take fur-seals had been violated. Dunn accom- 
panied his Report with a Bill on the subject. It proposes to amend the present Law 
by providing that one year before the present lease to the Alaska Company expires, 
or when any future similar lease expires, the Secretary of the Treasury shall lease 
to the proper persons the right of taking fur-seals on the Islands of St. Paul and 
St. George for twenty years, at not less than 50,000 dollars per annum, and 8 dol. 
50 ¢. in addition for each sealskin shipped from the islands. Such lease shall not be 
transferable. 
You will notice in this Report it is recommended that the Secretary of the Treasury 
shall lease to the proper persons. Now, the question is, who are the proper persons? 
Can any one read this Report and fail to see where the interest is? Why not put the 
leasing of these islands in a business shape like any other Government Contract? 
Let it be awarded to the highest bidder; give all a chance, and not allow this one 
man to decide who are the proper persons to whom these islands shall-be leased. If 
it is done in this way it is safe to say that the next lease will realize from 600,000 to 
800,000 dollars per annum to our Government, instead of 400,000 dollars, as per 
recommendation of Mr. Dunn. 
You will also notice that it is recommended to amend the Laws so that the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury shall not only have the power of re-leasing the islands, but 
that this Law shall apply to any future lease, thereby extending this power to an 
unlimited extent, in fact as long as these islands are of any value for leasing. 
Who would not like to be the Secretary of the Treasury and have this power? It 
would be almost as good as having the islands themselves. Now, we protest against 
such action. It shows fraud upon its face so plain that a blind man ought to see 
through it. 
This Report of the 29th January goes further on, and says: 
The present Law is declared to apply to all the waters of Behring’s Sea in Alaska 
mentioned in the Treaty with Russia by which Alaska was ceded to the United 
States, and the President shall take measures to have arrested all persons, and seized 
all vessels, violating the laws of the United States therein. In addition to the above 
provision is made for the protection of the salmon fisheries. The Report recommends 
that the Act to prevent the extermination of our fur-bearing animals in Alaska 
283 be continued in force with certain amendments, believing that not only the 
system it adopts but the methods of carrying it into effect are well adapted 
for the purpose indicated. 
In conelusion, the Committee finds the following facts: 
That if the Law protecting seal life is enforced, the preservation of the seal rook- 
eries will be assured, the revenue continued and increased, and the native inhabit- 
ants of the seal islands maintained, without cost to the Government; that the Alaska 
Commercial Company has fully performed its Contract with the Government, and 
has contributed liberally to the support, maintenance, comfort, and civilization of 
the inhabitants of not only the seal islands, but to those of the Aleutian Islands, 
Kodiac, and the mainland; that the fur-seal industry will have paid into the 
Treasury over 8,000,000 dollars during the period of the present lease; that the chief 
object of the purchase of Alaska was the acquisition of the valuable products of 
Behring’s Sea, that at the cession of Alaska to the United States the Russian title to 
