The Alaska daily empire., 1922-03-03
LEASING SYSTEM RETARDS ALASKA
 SAYS ATTORNEY
Northwestern Miners Adopt Resolution Based on Speech
 by Maurice D. Leehey.
E~.s&.m ST

One of the most widely discussed features of the Northwest Mining As. sociation meeting held at Spokane February 14 to IS, was a speech on Alaskan conditions by Maurice D. Leehey, Seattle and Alaska attorney. MT Leehey, while favoring consolida- tion of Federal bureaus connected with Alaskan government, declared that as a remedy such an action would be more superficial than real, and asserted that the present sys. tenn 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 pur poses of operation after development has been accomplished but only through the establishment of owner ship in fee simple by individuals could there be any satisfactory de- velopment.
 Following the address of Mir. Lee hey, the association unanimously
  argument and supporting the ideas he advocated This resolution fol lows in full:
 "Whereas, the last census shows that Alaska lost one-fourth of her white population during that decade while the government was building fifty million dollar railroad in the Territory, and in that connection it is noted that Alaska is still import ing from British Columbia the great bulk of the coal used in the Terri tory, although the U. & Geological Survey reports that Alaska coal fields contain several billion tons of coal of superior 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 profitable producer of high-grade oil, Alaska is still buying California fuel oil at great cost for the operation of her ships and prin cipal mines and railway; that, al though the Forest Service estimates that Alaska forests can furnish one third of all the newsprint paper used in the United States, none is manu- factured there, and that Alaska news papers are paying from one to five cents a pound in freight charges alone on paper shipped in from Brit ish Columbia, while overmature pulp timber is rotting in the Alaska for ests; that the Alaska coal leasing law, passed in 1914, has, after more than seven years trial, proven i'm practical and a positive bar to coal mine development; that the oil leas- ing law, after two years trial, as yet promises no definite results; that so far it has been impossible to inter est the necessary capital in paper manufacture upon the timber sales contract offered by the government; that the salmon fisheries of Alaska, undoubtedly the richest fisheries in the world. are being depleted under the incompetent management of a government bureau in Washington, more than 4000 miles away, while the Alaska Legislature has no power whatever to protect that great re- source; that Alaska is autocratically governed, as to its natural resources, by 38 Federal bureaus with conflict ing and interlocking powers, all di- rected from Washington, and in most cases by men who have little or no knowledge of Alaska, which bureaus are responsible to seven different cabinet officers, and are in no man. ner co-ordinated to work in harmony but, on the contrary, are in many cases jealous of each others author ity. all of which results in most in- terminable 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 pio- neer operator. upon whom real pio- neer development always depends, and the tendency is, more and more