494 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
Mr. Morgan, in 1888, in his evidence before Congress (p. 23), said there were not 
sufficient cutters for the protection of the islands, and Mr, Wardman, Special Agent 
of the Treasury at the islands, 1881 to 1885, said: 
“T think the Government ought to keep at least one revenue-steamer therein and 
about these two islands up until the middle of October at least. The trouble has 
been in the Revenue Marine Service. The appropriations were all right, and a fellow 
would be sent up to nominally protect the Seal Islands, but he would also be ordered 
to look for the North Pole as well as watch the Seal Islands. He mieht find the 
North Pole, but not around the Seal Islands. He would be away just at the time he 
would be needed around there.” (Evidence before Congressional Committee, p. 38.) 
The Honourable Mr. Williams said: 
“The Government practice, through the Treasury Department, has been to pro- 
tect these waters so far as they could with the revenue-cutters which are at their 
command. Still it has frequently happened that a revenue-cutter goes upon the 
seal ground and then is ordered north for inspection, or for the relief of a whaling 
crew or something of that kind, and they are gone pretty much the whole time of 
the sealing season, and there seems to be an insufficiency in the method of pro- 
tection.” (Evidence before Congressional Committee, p. 106.) 
Mr. Taylor, Special Agent of the Treasury in 1881, said, before the same Commit- 
tee (p. 58): 
“The difficulty heretofore has been that our revenue-cutters have been obliged to 
cover a territory of 809 miles long and 7C0O or 800 miles wide, north and south, and 
they would get around to the Seal Islands about twice during a season. They never 
happened to be there when needed, and, as far as rendering any service whatever is 
concerned, they were practically useless so far as the Seal Islands were concerned. 
That has been the experience, I believe, of all who have been there.” 
This officer recommended steam-launches for Government Agents at the islands. 
(Evidence before Congressional Committee, p. 109.) 
Mr. Glidden, another Agent of the Treasury from 1882 to 1885, says (Evidence, 
Congressional Committee, p. 28) when he was at the islands the Government kept 
no vessels there. 
“They landed our officers on a little island6 miles from St. Paultowatch. . . . 
In every Report I made I recommended that they should keep a revenue-cutter there, 
One vessel cannot protect those islands and visit the Arctic Ocean besides. The 
cruizing-ground is far too extensive, covering, as it does, a distance of several thou- 
sand miles, and while the cutter is absent in the Arctic much damage can be done by 
the marauding vessels to the Seal Islands.” 
That Congress regarded it at the outset as the duty at least of the Administration 
to simply guard and regulate the islands, is clear from the Act first dealing with the 
subject. ; 
Mr. Boutwell, the Secretary of the Treasury, reported in 1870 (41st Congress, 2nd 
Session, Ex. Doc. No. 109) as follows: 
““A suggestion has been made to this Department, in various forms, that the Goy- 
ernment should lease these islands for a long period of time to a Company or firm 
for an annual sum of money, upon the condition that provision should be made for 
the subsistence and education of the natives, and that the fisheries themselves 
should be preserved from injury. This plan is open to the very grave objection that 
it makes a monopoly of a branch of industry, important not only for the people of 
the islands, but to the people of the United States, if the preparation and man- 
449 ufacture of theskins for use should be transferred from London to this country. 
Such a monopoly is contrary to the ideas of the people, and not many years 
would pass before serious efforts would be made for its overthrow. Moreover, the 
natives of the islands would be under the control of the Company,.and as the expi- 
ration of the lease approached, the inducements to protect them and preserve the 
fisheries would diminish, especially if the Company saw, as would probably be the 
case, that it had no hope of a renewal of its privileges. Under these circumstan- 
ces the Government of the United States would necessarily be subjected to great 
expense and trouble. 
“For these reasons, briefly stated, but valid, as they appear to me, I cannot con- 
cur in the suggestion that the islands should be leased te any Company fer a period 
of years. 
“Inasmuch as it will be necessary for the Government of the United States to 
maintain in and around the islands a military and naval force for the protection of 
its interests under any plan that can be devised, I am of opinion that it is better 
that the Government should assume the entire control of the business of the islands, 
and exclude everybody but its own servants and agents; that it should establish a 
rigid system of police, excluding from the islands distilled spirits and fire-arms, and 
subject vessels that touch there to forfeiture, except when they are driven to seek 
shelter or for necessary repairs. The conditions of such occupancy and control by 
the Government of the United States seem to me to be these: 
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