224 THE ASIATIC FUK-SEAL ISLANDS. 



MANAGEMENT OF THE PUR-SEAL INDUSTRY. 



There are various differences in the administration of affairs on the American 

 and Eussian fur-seal islands, in the relation of the lessees and of the governments 

 to the natives, and the resources of the latter, which it may be instructive and 

 interesting to inquire into. 



It may be stated, in a general way, that on the Pribilof Islands, under the 

 contract, the lessees are managing both their own affairs and those of the natives, 

 while the role of United States Government officials is chiefly one of supervision, 

 their duty being to see that the lessees are fulfilling the conditions of the contract 

 both in reference to the natives and to the Government. The lessees must furnish the 

 natives with doctors and medicines, must maintain schools, take care of widows and 

 orphans, supply a certain amount of coal, etc. The doctors, school teachers, etc., are 

 therefore employees of the company. They import and sell in their stores such 

 articles and at such prices as they themselves fix upon. They undertake practically 

 the sealing, the killing and selection, and the natives are working for the company. 



On the Commander Islands the arrangement is entirely different. There the 

 lessees have practically nothing to do with the natives or with the sealing. The 

 Government furnishes doctors and school teachers, and the community, from its 

 own revenues, takes care of the widows and orphans. The Government undertakes 

 the sealing business itself, attends, by its officials and the natives, to the selecting, 

 killing, and skinning of the seals; all the company has to do is to receive the skins 

 at the salt-house door and to cure them. If the company refuses the skins, well and 

 good, the Government retains them and sells them, the practical result, however, 

 being that the company prefers to take all skins rather than to have them thrown on 

 the market in competition. In their stores the lessees are only allowed to sell such 

 articles as the Government may order, and at a certain fixed percentage over 

 wholesale invoice prices. 



It will be seen that the Eussian system is greatly superior to that in vogue on 

 the American islands, inasmuch as it keeps the natives away from the control of the 

 company and that it gives the Government a much freer hand in the regulation of the 

 whole sealing business. Superficially it looks as if the American system has worked 

 a saving to the Government, and that the facilities of medical attendance, schools, 

 etc., have been obtained free; but as a matter of fact these items have of course been 

 calculated by the lessees and their equivalent deducted from the price offered for 

 the skins. 



In addition to the better system (part of which is also that the contract with the 

 lessees is only for ten years while on the American islands the contract is for twenty 

 years), the Eussian Government has also secured for the natives better remuneration 

 both for their work and for their fur-seal skins. Thus, on the Commander Islands, the 

 natives receive per seal skin (in pay for the work of killing and skinning) $0.75 

 (rbl. 1.50), while on the Pribilof Islands they are only paid 10.50. On the Commander 

 Islands the natives receive $7 (rbl. 14) per skin for first-class blue foxes, while the 

 price on the Pribilofs is only $5. 



It must not be forgotten that the Commander Island natives are also better 

 situated so far as the natural resources of their islands are concerned. The Copper 

 Islanders derive great revenue from the large number of sea otters they kill, and on 

 Bering Island the natives have the large salmon fisheries to depend upon. No such 

 sources of income and food are available to the people on the Pribilof Islands. 



