The Cordova daily times., 1922-04-10

One of the most widely discussed features of the Northwest Mining as-
 sociation meeting held at Spokane February IA to IS, was speech on :, Alaskan conditions by Maurice D. Leehey, Seattle and Alaska attorney, and director of an oil company at Katalla. Mr. Leehey, while favoring consolidation of federal bureaus con- nected with Alaskan government, de-
 clared that as remedy such an ac-
 tion would be more superficial than real, and asserted that the present system of administering Alaskan re- sources was the fundamental cause of the lack of development.
 He condemned the system of leases in vogue in the territory. Leases, he argued. are serviceable for purposes of operation after development has
 been accomplished but only through the establishment of ownership in fee "
 any satisfactory development.
 Following the address of MT. Lee hey, the association unanimously
 adopted a resolution based on his ar
 gument and supporting the ideas he
 advocated. This resolution follows in full:
 "Whereas, the last census shows that Alaska lost one-fourth of her white population during that decade while the government was building a fifty y-million-dolar railroad in the ter
 ritory, and in that connection it is noted that Alaska is still importing from British Columbia the great bulk of the coal used in the territory,
 although the U. s. geological survey reports that Alaska coal fields con- tain several billion tons of coal su-
 perior in quality, well distributed throughout the territory; that, al though the only patented oil claim in Alaska perfected before the oil
 land withdrawal of 1909, has ever
 since been a profitable producer of.
 high-grade oil, Alaska is still buy
 ing California fuel oil at great cost
 for the operation of her ships and
 principal mines and railway; that,
 although the forest service estimates
 that Alaska forests can furnish one
 third of all the news-print paper used
 in the United States, none is manu- factured there, and that Alaska news papers are paying from one to fiveI cents a pound in freight charges alone on paper shipped in from British Co., lumbia while over-mature pulp-tim Der is rotting in the Alaska forests; that the Alaska. coal leasing law, passed in 1914, has, after more than seven years trial proven impractical and a positive bar to coal mine de- velopment; that the oil leasing law, after two years trial, as yet promis- es no definite results; that so far it has been impossible to interest the necessary capital in paper manufac- ture upon the timbeer sales contract offered by the government; that the salmon fisheries of Alaska, undoubt- edly the richest fisheries in the world, are being depleted under the incompetent management of a gov ernment bureau in Washington, more than 4,000 miles away, while thei Alaska legislature has no power whatever to protect that great re- source; that Alaska is automatically governed, as to it's natural resources, by thirty eight federal bureaus with conflicting and interlocking powers, all directed from Washington, and in most cases by men who have little or no knowledge of Alaska, which bu-
 reaus are responsible to seven diff ferent cabinet officers, and are in moi manner co-ordinated to work in har-' mony but, on the contrary, are in
 many cases jealous of each others
 authority, all of which results in
 most interminable confusion, endless
 red-tape, and forbidding delays, and
 "Whereas, the effect of all this
 has been to drive from Alaska to
 more attractive fields the small pi-
 oneer operator, upon whom real pi-
 oneer development always depends,
 and the tendency is, more and more
 each year, to a monopoly of the rich
 reCouroac Inv largo cOrDOrate inter-