406 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



7. Q. What are the relations of the company to the Territory of Alaska, separate 

 from the islands of St. Paul and St. George, in Bering Sea? — A. The company buys 

 furs from native hunters and traders, and pays for them in goods and money, but has 

 no exclusive control of or right to such trade. 



8. Q. Do you know whether or not there are other companies and traders in that 

 Territory engaged in the fur trade besides the Alaska Commercial Company and its 

 agents ? — A. Yes, sir ; Bowen and Calwell, at Kodiak ; H. Liebes &, Co., of San Fran- 

 cisco; "McCoUam Fishing and Trading Company," and the "Northwest Trading 

 Company," none of whom are in any way connected with the Alaska Commercial Com- 

 pa]iy ; the whaling fleets also trade with the natives. 



9. Q. What other industries besides the fur trade are maintained in Alaska, so far 

 as you know ? — A. Mining industry, codfishing, salmon packing, herring fishing, and 

 ■walrus hunting. 



10. Q. In the late report of Governor Swineford, of Alaska (page 32), he states that 

 the Alaska Commercial Company " at one time marked and mutilated the coin of the 

 United States, and refused to receive any other from the natives in payment for goods 

 necessary to their comfort and well-being ; " what have yon to say in reference to 

 that statement ? — A. I have been in the office of the company since May, 1877, and, 

 in reference to this period of time, I know, of my own persoiial knowledge, that the 

 statement is false, and from my knowledge of the company's business and methods, 

 as well as from what I have been informed by the company and its agents in reference 

 to the period prior to May, 1877, I am satisfied that the entire statement is without 

 foundation ; I know that mutilated coin has been received by the company, through 

 its agents, but it was not stamped or mutilated by the company or its agents or em- 

 ployes, or by its authority or sanction ; and I know, also, that' said mutilated coin 

 was received by the company at its face value, and was sold in San Francisco as bull- 

 ion, as the vouchers on file in the company's oflQce will show. 



11. Q. Has the company any trade with the natives of the Yukon region ? — A. None 

 whatever ; the company has an agent at St. Michaels who buys furs from the traders 

 and sells goods to them at fixed prices, but the company has no dealings whatever 

 with the natives. 



Leon Sloss. 

 The District of Columria, 



City and County of Washington : 

 Before the undersigned, a notary public within and for the district and county 

 aforesaid, personally appeared the above-named Leon Sloss, who is personally known 

 to me, and who signed the foregoing in my presence, and then*aud there declared 

 before me on oath, being by me first duly sworn, that the answers to the foregoing 

 interrogatories, propounded to him by the said N. L. Jeftries, are each and all of them 

 true. 



Witness my hand and official seal at Washington, D. C, this 28th day of Januarv, 

 1888. 

 [SEAL.] George W. Bagg, 



Notary Public. 



Washington, D. C, February 1, 1888. 



H. H. McIntyre, being interrogated by N. L. Jeffries, attorney for the Alaska 

 Commercial Company, of San Francisco, Cal., answered as follows: 



Q. What is your age, residence, and occupation ? — A. Age, forty-three years ; res- 

 idence. West Randolph, Vt. ; superintendent of seal fisheries of Alaska since 1870 to 

 this date ; formerly special Treasury agent for Alaska. 



O. In the late report of Governor Swineford, of Alaska (page I52j, it is stated as 

 follows: "Its "(the Alaska Commercial Company's) "insatiable greed is such that 

 is not content with robbing the poor native in the price it sets upon the product of 

 his dangerous toil, but it robs him also in the exorbitant prices it exacts for the goods 

 given in exchange. And there is no appeal ; no alternative. There are no other trad- 

 ing stations in all that vast section, and the natives must pay the price asked and ac- 

 cept thatwhich is offered — the first a 100 per cent, advance on the amount at which the 

 same goods are sold to the whites, and the last low enough to add still another 100 per 

 cent, to the company's profit. As, for instance, there is no timber on the Aleutian 

 islands, and the native who goes out to hunt the sea-otter has no time to provide 

 himself with fuel by gathering driftwood from the shores, as many are able to do. 

 He must have fuel for the winter, and the company generously takes his sea-otter 

 skins at half their real cash value and pays him in coal at $40 per ton— coal of the 

 same quality as that which it sells to the few white residents for $20. The native 

 who dares to sell his furs for cash to others than the agents of the company finds 

 that his money has no purchasing power at, perhaps, the only trading station within 

 a distance of several hundred miles, and is thus starved into submission." What 



