Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 199

8067. Then is the remedy you suggest, a system of lease-holding?-Yes.

8068. Is there any reason why that does not exist in Shetland already?-I don't know any particular reason for it.

8069. Have the tenants in many places not been offered leases?-In some cases they have been offered leases, and I believe they have refused them, but I don't know for what reason.

8070. Have you any observation to make upon the subject of fixing the price of the fishermen's catch at the end of the season?-I have no observation to make on that subject, for I am not able to see how far it would be to the advantage of the fisherman to fix the price beforehand. I don't think it would be an advantage to him; indeed, I think the fisherman would be greater loser by a fixed price than he is just now.

8071. Is that because he would still have to obtain his supplies on credit?-Not so much that; but for one thing, the merchant's or fish-curer's knowledge of what the market is likely to be, is ahead of that of the fisherman; and I think it holds good more or less, by common sense, that the merchant should try to secure safety for himself in the bargain which he makes. The probability therefore is, that the fisherman would suffer more in that case than he does at present.

8072. You think the merchant has better means of foreseeing the course of the markets than the fishermen?-I think so; and although I believe the merchants hereabouts would generally give the men all the advantage they could, I cannot see how it would be possible that by fixing the price beforehand the fisherman would be the gainer.

8073. Is there any reason to suppose that the fishermen have not a sufficient voice in fixing what the current price is to be at the end of the season?-I don't think the fishermen have any voice in that at all, and I don't know how far the merchant or fish-curer [Page 197] has either.

It must be regulated by the south-country markets.

8074. Would it be any advantage to the fishermen in your neighbourhood to have periodical payments up to a certain amount of their catch, leaving the balance to be fixed, and the price also, or a portion of it to be fixed at the end of the season?-I don't think that would be any advantage, and there is one disadvantage which would certainly follow such a system. There are some men who will take care of their money, pay it to them when you like; but those who take least care of it would spend it as they got it, and the merchants having paid ready money to them, there would be n.o.body who would advance anything to them when they wished to pay their land-rent or other debts.

8075. Are these careless men not equally apt, under the present system, to take too much in goods, and to exhaust their earnings too early?-Perhaps they are, but there is some check upon them under the present system, whereas if they got the money in their own hands there would be none.

8076. What is the check upon them?-The merchant himself will be a check, if a man is running an account which he is not likely to meet. I am not able to say how far the system you have suggested would be an advantage to the people. It might be an advantage, but I cannot see it.*

* The following letter was afterwards addressed to the Commissioner by Mr. Fraser:- SULLAM, 18 1872.

W. GUTHRIE, Esq.

SIR,-You will perhaps allow me to supplement the evidence gave at Brae the other day by a few notes. I did not bring out all I wished to say on the credit system. It would require more time than could than be allowed to one witness, and more writing than I would like to trouble you with now, to explain it fully.

Credit has become almost a necessity in Shetland in the present condition of the islands and it has gone on so long that the moral ton of society has suffered in consequence of it. The present fish-curers and merchants have not created the system; it existed before them, and they have taken it up as a necessary evil.

Shetland fisherman may be divided into three cla.s.ses. The first cla.s.s are free men. They have never been in debt, and hope never to be. The second cla.s.s, under the present circ.u.mstances, come in debt, but they don't like it, and get out of it as soon as they can. The third cla.s.s do not seem to have any particular dislike to it. When the Commissioner asked me at Brae if I had known men lose their independence by coming in debt, or something like that, I had this cla.s.s in my mind, and I was puzzled what to say. I think the loss must have been sustained long, long ago, for they have always appeared to me as a party who never had anything of the sort to lose.

The moral evils of the system to this cla.s.s need not be mentioned. I will name one or two of its physical effects.

1. It largely increases pauperism, by raising a false standard by which to regulate one's expenditure. When one of this cla.s.s falls from earning, he is fit only for the Parochial Board.

2. In case of a boat accident, or in a season like 1869, the prospect is most appalling. In that year the crop was very largely a failure; many of the people had gone as deep in debt as they could go; and but for the aid sent by the Society of Friends, some of the people would a.s.suredly have died, and a still larger number could not have sown their ground. The timely aid sent by the Friends and those whom they enlisted with them in their benevolent work, prevented both these consequences.

There are not a few families in Shetland-bereaved families, I mean-supported by funds supplied by the benevolence of south country ladies and gentlemen, who otherwise must have starved, or fall with a crus.h.i.+ng weight upon the Parochial Boards.

Now, for all this, so far as I know, there is only one remedy- the improvement of the soil. The people are cultivating just the same ground their did, and most of the ground now cultivated has never rested in the memory of living man, or perhaps as long before. New earth is made to supply the yearly waste, and thus the ground in the neighbourhood of a few small farms is so robbed as to be rendered useless for generations, unless it happens to have earth enough to allow of laying down the surface, and a proprietor or factor who binds the people to do it.

There is, in general, plenty of unreclaimed land lying close by these small farms which might be broken up and brought under crop, and some of the old allowed to rest. In some places there are plenty of stones to hedge in a small croft of land where gra.s.s might be sown, but nothing is done. That unreclaimed land is made to do duty by keeping life in a few cows-two, or more. During the summer season, the merchant supplies the meal as long as he can, and so things continue its they are. No man who may receive a forty days', or even a six months', warning, is likely to exert himself to bring more ground under crop. The thing wanted is leasehold of the property by the tenant. But I am told the tenants will not take a lease. It may be so; but before the statement be admitted as true, the sort of lease offered them would require to be seen. There are leases offered which no man of common sense would take. There is property in Shetland, and plenty of it, that in a 19 years lease could be made 50 per cent. better than it is, and be a better bargain then, than now. And all this might be done without costing the proprietor one s.h.i.+lling. Let him give it lease on reasonable terms.

There is just one thing more I would like to state. I am referring to the evidence given last year before the Commissioner in Edinburgh, it was then stated by Mr. Walker, that the hills were doing the people no good, and therefore he had taken them from them. The latter part of this statement is true, but on the former part of it I would beg to say, the native sheep reared on these hills supply material for knitting, and the female part of the population are clad almost entirely from that source alone. Then the female members of the house generally provide during the winter months warm underclothing for the fisherman, without which he could not pursue his hazardous occupation. Bedclothes are also largely supplied from the same source. Leave all these to be supplied by the fisherman from his scanty earnings, and it requires no prophet to foretell the result.

To say that the hills were doing the people no good, either manifests great ignorance of the subject, or something worse.-I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, James Fraser.

Brae, January 13, 1872, THOMAS GIFFORD, examined,

8077. You are the factor on the estate of Busta?-I am.

8078. I believe that is the largest estate in Shetland?-I believe it is.

8079. What is the rental?-2700.

8080. Are there any leases on the estate?-Yes, there are a good many.

8081. Are these of the small holdings or of the large holdings only?-There are leases of both.

8082. Do the majority of the fishermen tenants have leases?-Not the majority.

8083. Or a considerable number?-I could hardly say there are a considerable number; only a small number, I think.

8084. I understand that the tenants on the Busta estate are entirely free to fish for any person with whom they may choose to engage?-Yes; and a great many of them go south and follow different employments,

8085. How many large mercantile establishments or shops are there on the Busta property which are held by fish-curers?-Four.

There is one at Voe, one at Brae, one at Hillswick, and one at Lochend (Mr. Laurenson's).

8086. I presume these are all the large establishments of that kind in the district of Delting and Northmaven, except the shop at Mossbank?-No; Messrs. Hay & Company have one at North Roe, at the very farthest extremity of Northmaven, and then there are fis.h.i.+ng stations at Stenness and Feideland.

8087. But at these stations the fishermen are all employed by one or other of the merchants whose places of business you have enumerated?-Yes.

8088. And all these merchants hold their shops under the Busta trustees?-Yes.

8089. Have they all leases?-Yes.

8090. Can you tell me from recollection what the rents of these shops are?-The shops are not separately rented; they are let along with farms in every case.

8091. The merchants are not tacksmen of any tenants, but they have farms?-Yes; merely their own farms.

8092. Is there any prohibition to sub-let on these farms?-Yes; in every case.

8093. What are the rents of these four parties?-327 for the four.

8094. In the district from Busta extending to the march of the Gossaburgh property at North Roe, is the greater part of the land under your management?-Yes.

8095. The greater part of it belongs to the Busta estate?-Yes; three-fourths of it perhaps.

8096. Is there any understanding with the four merchants you have mentioned, that no other shops than theirs shall be opened upon your property?-No, a shop can be opened at any place.

8097. Have you objected in any case to the opening of shops, lest it should interfere with the business of these lessees?-I have not.

There are several shops that have been opened lately.

8098. Were these small shops?-Yes; there was one you pa.s.sed at the head of the voe going to Hillswick.

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8099. Is that Arthur Harrison's?-Yes; and there is one opposite it again, on the Roenessvoe side.

8100. Is there any apprehension on the part of the Busta trustees lest the rent paid by the larger establishments should be reduced by the opening of smaller shops?-None.