The daily Alaskan., 1904-07-07
LET THEM BE FAIR.


 nsdian cities down the coast are mak- Ing much over the fine imposed by Dep uty Collector Beagle, at Ketohikan, upon the Princess May for selling tick cts from Alaskan ports to the Ameri- can port of Seattle. Their contention is that the American customs officers are not treating the Canadians with as great liberality as their government treats Americans.
 The Victoria Colonist, which speaks the mind of the provincial government, and which has been quoted freely by the other Canadian press, says the treatment of the Canadian Pacific steamer is in singular contrast to the privileges extended by Canada only a short time ago to American vessels in the Yukon trade, and it is sorry to say that the history of the past few years gives a similar record of the different manner in which the authorities of Canada and the United States have dealt with such matters. Cn this coast, it remarks, there can be no question that the liberality which the Canadian authorities have extended to American shipping has not been reciprOcated by the customs officials of the United States"
 While 1t is likely that it will be held, as it has been before, that it is not the selling of tickets between American ports by foreign shipowners but the ae- tual carrying of passengers between them by foreign ships that is prohibit ed by law, the Canadians had well re- frain from comparison of the favOrs shown one country by the other in northern trade. The policy of the Ca nadian government has been much mar rover than that of the United States in this matter. The concession that was made to American carriers, permitting them to take merchandise from Cana dian ports to St. Michael and from there to Dawson, was not made in the interest of American shipping but in the interest of the Canadian merchants who had goods to ship, and to carry which there were no Canadian ships.
 Before the Canadians begin making comparisons between the manner of the enforcement of the customs laws by the United States and the Dominion 1t would be we'll for them to do some thing to indicate that they intend to give American merchants the same op- | portunity to sell goods on the Canadian side of the line that Americans give their merchants on the American side. Let them permit American merchants to sell Canadian goods duty free to their customers on the Canadian side of the boundary as the United States permit Canadian merchants to sell American goods on our side before they complain of the unfairness of the Amer ican treasury officials.
 The following Dawson dispatch, which recently appeared in the Seattle Times, speaks for itself:
 Dawson merchants are doing an im- mense wholesale business for the Tan ana. Every boat goes out loaded to the guards with freight and many paSsen- gers. Furniture, groceries, machin- cry, produce and almost everything else is being shipped there in large quantities"
 It would be impossible for merchants living and doing business in an Ameri- can city to develop a trade with Ca nadian mining camp such as has been developed between Dawson and the Tanana. That is because the Ameri- cans are doing for the Canadians what the latter refuse to do for the Ameri- cans.