Daily Alta California, Volume 22, Number 7256, 1 February 1870 — SAN FRANCISCO, TUESDAY, FEB. 1. WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH ALASKA? [ARTICLE]

SAN FRANCISCO, TUESDAY, FEB. 1.

WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH ALASKA?

It is a source of no small gratification to the original opponents of the Alaska purchase to know that the Government is considerably bothered to known what to do with it. The rush to the Territory has not been very great; after all that has been said in its favor, the total white population of Alaska being now only about three hundred souls. Shall we organize a Territorial Government for the benefit of the determined three hundred? If the Government of the United States shall set up all the machinery of a Territoriality, and make an organized Territory (with a big T) out ot what is only a territory (with a little t), will the six hundred of white Alaskan population be able to turn out enough full-grown legislative force to make a Legislative Assembly, Council, etc., to say nothing of the minor local offices? The Governors, Secretaries, Marshals, and Justices of Territories are always exported from Washington, being selected from the abundant material on hand there; so there need be no difficulty on that score. But Alaska, valuable though the country may be, can hardly be made to pay the extra cost of setting up a local government, the expenses of which, in official salaries, etc., must be met by the United States. Until the population of Alaska can be given in at a larger figure than it now is, there would be a palpable absurdity in giving the country all the machinery of a Territorial Government. The present state of things is an anomaly, and neither the Constitution nor the laws of the United States make any provision for the maintenance of any portion of the Republic in such a condition. For Alaska, though we are in the habit of calling it a Territory (with a big T), has not even arrived at the small dignity of the tadpole period; it is not yet in its swaddling clothes, even ; but is naked, out -in the cold, and merely territory (with a small t), and has not felt the organizing hand of Congress; it has not been organized, has no organic act, and is therefore inorganic. The suggestion of Mr. H. H. Mclntyre, late Special Agent of the Treasury Department, that the United States Courts of California, Oregon and Washington Territory have original jurisdiction in all cases of law and equity arising in Alaska, is a good one; but is open to the objection that such a regulation would be rather costly to litigating citizens in Alaska ; still, as a means of discouraging litigation, it might serve a good purpose. So far as the mutual protection of the citizens themselves is concerned, a local government for Sitka could be organized out of home material and be maintained and regulated by the people themselves. This sort of citizens' government has been adopted before now in more than one city of the United States. At any rate, military law and military government should be withdrawn as soon as possible. An extensive military establishment is not needed in Alaska, and the despotism of mil itary law will always operate injuriously to the country over which it is extended.

As for the seal " fisheries" as we are forced to call them, there seems to be but one way to derive public revenue from the slaughter of these creatuies, without exterminating them. Irresponsible parties of furhunters, if permitted to kill the seals as indiscriminately as they choose, would soon exhaust this profitable source of fur supply. The animals are easily scared from their haunts, and a general slaughter would render the seal islands tenantless in a single season. The natives who inhabit the islands know best how to hunt and kill the Beats so as to secure the highest number of skins with the least injury to the whole interest of furseal hunting. If a Company, properly organized and composed of reliable and respress and be ready to accept a lease of the seal islands for a term of years, there could be no possible objection to such a contract being made, always provided that the United States shall receive a tax on each and every skin taken, that the most stringent provisions be made to ascertain the number collected and punish any infraction of the regulations, and that proper provision be made for compensating the natives whose subsistence is derived from the seal trade. In many respects such a system of regulations will be difficult to arrange so that the best interests of the National Government and the just rights of the native can be protected; but it is possible to provide for all these, and it is to be hoped that the present session of Congress may educe some system by which civil government can be extended over Alaska, and its natural resources be developed without injury.