told. No doubt about it. Instead of the various
papers and the territorial officials inviting pros
pective settlers to stay out of the Territory, why
not invite them in and give them opportunity to
earn a living and at the same time develop the
territory.
When 27,000 fishermen are engaged in fishing,
it will mean that at least 30,000 others will be de
pendent upon that labor. The population of the
territory would be augmented to approximately
120,000 instead of 60,000.
Remember always that resident labor builds
permanently with the idea of building up its home
and home town. That population of 120,000
permanently building their homes will draw other
irterests and manufactories so that the country
v/ill develop by leaps and bounds. The vision of
the canning system has been to can the most
salmon in the shortest time at the lowest price to
sell at the highest. They are paying the penalty
for their lack of business acumen and proper
vision. The idea of getting rich off the land to get
out of the country to spend it is not a vision that
means for the permanent development of the
country. Of the several newsprints in Alaska, if
they all or ony one of th£m started business with
such limited vision they all would long since have
closed up their shops and moved to other climes.
The fishing industry continues employing
cheap labor, importing oriental problems and non
resident fishermen to the exclusion of residents.
The Bureau of Fisheries is giving every protection
to the monopolistic corporations and through its
administrative powers gives every assistance in
destroying the earning power of resident labor. It
is high time that the white collar interests of the
territory learned its lesson and take the situation
by the horns and make immediate change. It can
not continue to exist unless and until it does take
a hand in forcing such a change. The results will
be so beneficial to every line of business endeavor
that there will be an immediate change. The
territory will grow by leaps and bounds and
the serious aspects of the present situation will be
entirely removed.
-x
WHY DRIVE THEM AWAY
-X
Outside of Stroller's Weekly and the Seward
Gateway, the newsprints of Alaska, along with
officials of the territory are inviting citizens to
stay away from Alaska declaring that there is no
employment and that there is sufficient non-em
ployment problem in Alaska without bringing in
other prospective citizens.
Now is the time to bring in settlers. The set
tlers who come at this time will come prepared
knowing that any living they get from the coun
try must come from its resources. There are many
millions of acres of undeveloped mineral country
which have not even been scraped. There are other
resources that are just laying idle and going to
waste.
The citizens and others who come to Alaska
during any era of prosperity come only as vaca
tionists. They come to see the country and to get
out of it as much as they can in as short a time
as possible. The citizens who come during the
present period of economic distress will be hardier
citizens who will work with the determination to
live on the resources of the land to develop them
while so doing. Those should be invited to come
and every effort should be made to augment mi
gration to Alaska. It is time that there was a bit
of vision used in the development of the Territory
and that there was a spirit of optimism rather
than the down-hearted, long-faced pessimistic
attitude which is adopted and which drives out
prospective settlers.
--x
THE WAR IS OVER
X
Somewhere the statement is made that it
costs six cents per day per person to feed a group
of school children in the states and it costs 30
cents per day to feed a similar group in Alaska.
Going up and down the coast looking into the
prices of commodities one cannot but agree that
prices in Alaska are not excusable in some
localities.
Wrangell has been in the doldrums for a
number of years due to the discriminatory regula
tions of the fisheries bureau. Trollers have desired
to stay there during the winter but they find that
on virtually every article they pay more than they
have to pay at Ketchikan and Juneau. They go
where they can buy most for their money. In one
town off the main line of travel Utah coal sold at
90 cents per sack for 125 pounds of coal. A fisher
man went to a mainline town and paid $1.25 a
sack for the same coal. It has been pointed out
that this differential runs pretty much the same
all along the line with the general run of com
modities.
The war is over with all its attendant war
prices. Rents which called for war values today
are out of proportion. Those dealers who have got
ten rid of their war stocks and at a loss are mak
ing a bit of money on the new lower priced com
modities. Certainly a dealer cannot make money
on a labor group that is not earning or whose
earnings are too low to permit purchase of high
price commodities. , = .» d