carry on their work. Last year the amount was
$5,200.
---x
FISHERY REGULATIONS 1930
“Noteworthy among the alterations is the
elimination of a paragraph of the General Regu
lations for 1929 by which purse-seines were pro
hibited from being attached to the shore. The
new legulations contain NO LUCH RESTRICTION
and in this way may be considered as favorable to
the purse seiners.”—Pacific Fisherman.
The Reason
....The reason this “concession” was made was
this—William L. Paul as President of the ALAS
KA NATIVE BROTHERHOOD appealed to his
friend Vice-President Charles Curtis, who at once
saw the injustice of allowing a trap to “hook-off”
from the shore while prohibiting the seine from
doing the same.
This “concession” was the result of hard
work.
Every seiner who “hooks-ofr’ should lay aside
a percentage of fish thus caught to be used to
carry on the work. If you do not, you have no
right to talk about your hard luck.
-x
YAKUT AT GILLNET3 RESTRICTED
In the Yakutat district, the total length of
gillrets allowed on any salmon fishing boat shall
not exceed 150 fathoms.
Sixty fathoms are permitted in Dry Bay.
Everywhere el:e, 40 fathoms is the longest al
lowed for gillnets.
The reduction to 40 fathoms is in line with a
resc uticn of the ALASKA NATIVE BROTHER -
HOLD’S last convention at Haines, Alaska.
EXPLOITING ALASKA
Resume of Delegate Sutherland’s Speech before
Congress
Fifty million dollars’ worth of salmon annually
Was the impressive investment discussed the
other day in the House of Representatives at
Washington. This is the maximum value of the
catch taken—almost entirely by large canning
companies—from Alaskan waters every year; the
average, according to Dan Sutherland, Delegate
from Alaska, is over forty millions. It represents
a princely return to the large canneries which
dominate the fishing industry; it represents at
the same time penury and starvation to the na
tives, the Indians who are neither permitted, ex
cent under certain limited conditions, themselves
to fish in their own waters nor to work for the
eanners who pieier, for good and financial reas
ons, to import Filipino or Chinese labor.
The population of Alaska, 55,000 in the census
of i82u, is reported to be shrinking at the rate of
more than 1,000 a year. The Indians are report
ed destitute, living on a yearly income estimated
by a generous government as something around
$255 for a family and by Mr. Sutherland as about
$150. In addicion, they are permitted to catch
all the salmon, for family consumption only, that
they can. In other words, if they are willing to
live on an exclusive diet of salmon they would
still have at most $265 left over for all other ex
penses. The income, such as it is, is derived en
tirely by means of seines or nets, the canneries
by traps which catch several hundred thousand
fish in a season; in 1924, 57 per cent of the fish
ing was by traps; in 1928, 71 per cent. The per
centage of seine-caught fish has declined from
38 to 25 per cent. Limitations on seine fishing
are ostensibly for “conservation.” That is, the
ancient fishing streams may no longer be fished
in because they interfere with spawning grounds,
but traps a mile or so outside their bounds catch
the run and leave none to escape. Yet when
the native, individual fisherman seeks to attach
his seine outside to give him somewhat the same
effect as a trap, the government steps in and for-'
bids the practice because it is contrary to its
“conservation” plans. As Mr. Sutherland points
out, the traps are permitted to operate day in
and day out during the season of the run, with
no attention given to the customary Sunday stop
page—whi h the natives are compelled to observe
cr to shutting down for a period that may be
rendered necessary in case the fish are not pass
ing into the spawning grounds.
Mr. Sutherland, when pressed for a remedy
for the double exploitation of a people and an in
dustry, declared that the fault lay with the Bu
reau of Fisheries for permitting the canners to
have their way, and the remedy with Congress,
which can turn the fisheries over to the Territory
itself for regulaton and control, in imitation of
every State in the Union and the Territory of
Hawaii. No one pretends that any financial gain
accrues to the government departments concern
ed because of the ruthless spoliation of the Ter
ritory. It, is simply another case of bureaucratic
stupidity and monopolistic cleverness. Together
they makesplendid combination—for monopoies
Mr. Sutherland’s speech seems to have been re
ceived with open-mouthed indignation by his
colleagues. “Why do you not intruce a bill/'