Morning journal and courier., 1890-01-24
News by Telegraph
 FROH ALL QUARTERS. NOT FOR TIE SECRETARY. MT. Windom Will Not Sell
 the PeIts.
 THE vTORoNTO MAIL ANSWERS The Charges of Lobbying the Senate Committee. SEAS RUN MOUNTAIN HIGH. The Western Snow Block
 ade Still UnbrOken.
THE ToRoNIo MAIL ANSWERS
SEAS RUN MOUNTAIN HIGH.

WINDOM ON SEAL FISHING. The Secretary as Variance With shs
 senate BIIl to Throw over the Lease
 Systen.
 WASHINGTON, Jan. 23.-Secretary Windom has written letter to Hon. William P. Frye, chairman of the committee on commerce, in regard to the Alaska seal fisheries, in which he says:
 ''I have the honor to acknowledge the re- ceipt of 8 letter from your committee dated the 18th instant inclosing Senate bill 1,s6S, 'To repeal SO much of the. act of July 1st, 1870, chapter 1S0, as authorizes the leasing of the rights to engage in taking fur seals from tho islands of St. Paul and St. George and for other purposes, and requesting me to furnish the committee with such sugges- tion as deem proper, touching the merits of the bill and the propriety ot it's passage. The bill provides that the present system of leasing the right of taking fur seals from the well known rookeries in Behring Sea for an agreed compensation paid to the govern mont shall be discontinued and that the Sec- retary of the Treasury shall assume the management and control of such business in all its details. The bill seems further to di- rect the Secretary of the Treasury to assume management and control of the taking and killing of any and all otter, mink, marten, sable or other fur-bearing animals within tho limits of Alaska Territory or the waters thereof, and of marketing the skins of suoh animals in . prescribed manner. will take the liberty of assuming that tho last named provision of the bill Qf indesd its present wording is not the result of inadyer. tence) will scarcely require extended com- ment or suggestion from this department. Probably it will not be seriously proposed that the Treasury department shall in co.op- eration with the native Alsskan hunters and trappers, or otherwise, engage in tho business of catching fur bearing ani- malls of all kinds over ter ritory of land and sea equal in extent to half an average and then marketing the resulting peltries on government account. The main proposition embodied in the bill, which looks to tho abandonment of the lease systsm and the management of the government seal in- terests, has been repeatedly brought forward ever eince the subject of proper care of the seal rookeries in Alaska was first brought to the attention of the government in 1868. During that period it has often been dis cusssd. within the Treasury department or be- which have been charged at different times with the investigation. Whenever the de- partment or congressional committees have reported upon this matter they have decided in favor of the existing law and method"
 After quoting at great length many previ- ous decisions and the reasons which under lie the practically unbroken series of con- clusions reached by both the legislative and executive branches of the government under both political parties for continuing tho present law, Secretary Windom concludes as follows:
 "In view of many self evident diH8eulties the present system commenda itself to my judgment as the wisest aud best for the gov ernment to adopt for the future. Al it now stands, absolute control and full supervision of the conduct of the seal ing industry on the islands and the protection of the interests of the govern ment and the natives thereon is vested in the Treasury department. The details of this part of the business the Secretary of the Treaaury can master and enforce, but the management of the sales of peltries, either in home or . foreign market, ,he cannot be req sonably asked to assume. For these reasons believe that neither the interests of the government nor of the natives on these islands will be subserved by the passage ui this bill."