Fourth, The frequent changes in the office of the Secretary of the Treasury, who has very properly the absolute control of the business as it stands, do not permit upon his part that close, careful scrutiny which is exercised by the lessees, who, unlike him, have but their one purpose to carry out. The character of the leading men among them is enough to assure the public that the business is in responsible hands, and in the care of persons who will use every effort for its preservation and its perpetuation, as it is so plainly their best end to serve. Another great obstacle to the success of the business, if controlled entirely by the Government, would be encountered in disposing of the skins after they had been brought down from the islands. It would not do to sell them up there to the highest bidder, since that would license the sailing of a thousand ships to be present at the sale. The rattling of their anchor-chains and the scraping of their keels upon the beaches of the two little islands would alone drive every seal away and over to the Russian grounds in a remarkably short space of time. The Government would therefore need to offer them at public auction in this country: that would be simple history repeating itself—the Government would be at the mercy of any well-organized combination of buyers. Its agents conducting the sale could not counteract the effect of such a combination as can the agents of a private corporation, who may look after their interest in all the markets of the world in their own time and in their own way, according to the exigencies of the season and the demand, and who are supplied with money which they can use, without public scandal, in the manipulation of the market. On this ground I feel confident in stating that the Treasury of the United States receives more money, net, under the system now in operation than it would by taking the exclusive control of the business. Were any capable government officer supplied with, say, $100,000, to expend in “working the market,” and intrusted with the disposal of one hundred thousand seal-skins wherever he could do so to the best advantage of the Government, and were this agent a man of first-class ability and energy, I think it quite likely that the same success might attend his labor in the London market that distinguishes the management of the Alaska Commercial Company. But imagine the cry of fraud and embezzlement that would be raised against him, however honest he might be! This alone would bring the whole business into positive disrepute, and make it a national scandal. As matters are now conducted there is no room for scandal—not one single transaction on the islands but what is as clear to investigation and accountability as the light of the noonday sun; what is done is known to everybody, and the tax now laid by the Government upon, and paid into the treasury every year by the Alaska Commercial Company