Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 210

8563. You do not know whether that has been tried?-I do not.

For my own part, I never attempted it.

8564. Do you think the system of running accounts among the Faroe fishermen you have met with has led them to incur too large amounts of debt?-I am inclined to think so.

8565. Is that one of your reasons for wis.h.i.+ng to have a price fixed at the beginning of the year?-That would be one of the special reasons, but it is not the whole reason. I have another reason for that, which is, that as the system exists now, if the merchant makes a good bargain or a good market for his fish, and the man he sells them to does not fail before the price is payable, the merchant never loses, because he never pays the price to us before then which he can afford to pay. He is always secure; but if he had a fixed price to pay for the fish; he might lose as quick as I would.

That is my main reason for objecting to this system. I would like to have the thing altered so that there might be something like fair play, and that if I lose, I lose, and that if I gain, I gain. I am not saying that the merchant is not paying me a fair price now. He may be paying me all he can afford to pay, but I don't know that.

8566. But by the system you propose, the price might be lower than is sufficient for your labour?-I would have to take my chance of that. In my experience I have had to contend with three all but total failures at the fis.h.i.+ng, and of course our labour and time went for almost nothing. But that was not the owner's blame; we could not help it, and no more could he.

8567. Is there any other plan for the payment of fish that has occurred to you? How would it do, for instance, if a certain part of the price per cwt. were arranged to be paid on delivery of the green fish, and that the rest, whatever it might be, should be paid at settlement according to the current price?-I could scarcely speak with regard to green fish, because my experience has been in salted fish, and I would only like to speak about that with which I have been myself more immediately connected. But speaking with regard to salted fish only, what you have suggested would be a far better way, because I would then have a chance of seeing my fish weighed out. I don't think the merchant has cheated me out of a ton or half a ton of fish, but I have not had the chance of seeing my fish weighed when I was there. Each vessel's catch is kept and cured separately; but when we come to deliver the fish, if we had a chance of seeing it weighed then, and got a certain figure for it, that would be exactly the way in which these Englishmen deal.

They see their fish weighed, and they know what they are getting for each ton or each cwt. of it, and they have nothing more to expect. But we don't do that; we get the dried fish price.

8568. Do you know how much green fish makes a cwt. of dry?-I know that about 21/4 cwt. is the general rate allowed in the ling fis.h.i.+ng for green fish, but if it is good fish it will not require so much as that I have helped to cure myself, but it may be as much as that with bad fish. As to salted fish, I could not say definitely what is the proportion.

8569. There is no such calculation required in the Faroe fis.h.i.+ng?- No; it does not come so immediately under my notice. I never saw my fish weighed dry; I have seen them occasionally weighed wet, but not often.

8570. Are they occasionally weighed wet in the Faroe fis.h.i.+ng?- Sometimes, not often. It is done perhaps on sh.o.r.e or on board, as it happens. Suppose we land them at a different station from what we intended, they are counted out and weighed when sold, and then the owner or fish-curer will know what they can turn out when dry. That is the reason why they are weighed.

8571. Then there must be a calculation made in that case?-There is, but I do not know exactly what it is.

8572. To go back to your calculation about the expense of curing fish, can you tell me how much salt is required to cure a ton of fish?-We generally reckon upon a ton of salt to a ton of dry fish.

If the salt is well cared for it will do a little more but we generally reckon upon that as an average.

8573. Is the salt which the fish get all put on them before they are put on sh.o.r.e?-Yes; it is all put on. There is none put on afterwards, except it may be in the case of a few fish which are likely to give way, or when we get fish and have not enough salt, but that is a case of emergency and an exception-not the rule. As a rule, we cure our fish and put all the salt on them they require.

8574. Have you any knowledge of the system of payment in the ling fis.h.i.+ng?-Only from what I have heard about it. I have been at it only once when I was a lad; and I cannot say much about it from experience.

8575. Do you think your neighbours are generally quite at liberty to deal with any merchant they please in the ling fis.h.i.+ng?-I believe they are at perfect liberty so far as any man is concerned who could stand in a position like me, and be able to pay his way at any time; but I think a man who could not pay his way, and who was always in debt, would not be at liberty to go where he chose. I am not sure that even he would not be at liberty to use his own judgment, and deal where he liked; but I don't know that he would be looked well upon if he went to another. That is to say, if he was in debt 10 or 20 to a merchant, I don't think the merchant would look well upon it if the man went to another merchant to whom he owed nothing, and fished for him. At least that is what they have told me, and what I have known; but, of course, a man who can pay his way, and who is not bound to fish for a certain individual, can do as he likes. There are fishermen in other parts of the country who are bound to fish for their landowner or their factor, but that does not exist here.

8576. Is there anything else you wish to state?-I don't think there is anything about any matter with which I am immediately connected. We used to make a little Shetland cloth, but I could only corroborate the evidence that has been already given about that. I have never been under the necessity of selling it to a particular party, and I have got the money for it when I asked it. I don't know that the same price is always given in money as when it is taken in goods; but if I needed money, and asked for it, I always got it.

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8577. Then you have no objection to the practice which exists with regard to the hosiery trade?-No; I would not say anything about that.

8578. Have you any objection to what is done in the cloth trade?- It is the cloth trade I mean. Of course the knitting is a thing that I am not immediately connected with; there is not much done in that way with me. I know, however, that in some cases, although perhaps not in all, where women have been knitting hosiery, and they have got a certain price for an article, yet by buying tea or groceries, which are reckoned as money articles, they would have to pay more for them. They would have to pay 2d. or 11/2d. more upon a 1/4 lb. of tea, because it was being paid for by hosiery; but I think I would have preferred a different way of dealing with them.

I think, if I had been in a position like that, I would have given them less for their hosiery, and sold the articles to them at a fixed price. It would just have come to the very same thing with the merchants.

8579. You think that would have been a wiser course for the merchants to take?-Yes. I remember on one occasion when I brought two or three articles of hosiery to a merchant, I got a certain sum put upon them; but when I got a little tea from him, he said he had to make the tea 2d. more per quarter, because it was paid for in hosiery. I said to him I would not deal in that way if I were him, but that I would give a little less for the hosiery, and I would charge a fixed price for my tea, or whatever other articles I was selling; but he said, 'We must all do that, because if I were to say that I would not give a woman so much for her hosiery, she would go to another merchant with it, and they would give her a higher price, and lay it on their goods;' which I have no doubt they do.

8580. Therefore you did not convince the hosiery merchant?-I convinced him so far, that I got my price. I would not pay the price he charged, and would have taken my article of hosiery back rather than pay it.

8581. Did that take place some years ago?-Yes; it is not less than six years ago.

Brae, January 13, 1872, THOMAS ROBERTSON, examined.

8582. Have you been a fisherman here all your life?-Not all my life; but I have been for a number of years.

8583. You hold a bit of ground at Weathersta?-Yes.

8584. Who do you fish for?-For Mr Adie, Voe.

8585. Do you settle with him every year?-Yes.

8586. Do you generally get some of your balance in cash?-Yes.

If I have a balance to get I get it, but I always got money when I asked it, whether I had it to get or not.

8587. Do you get money advanced to you in the course of the year?-Yes; whenever I ask it.

8588. Did you get that ten years ago if you asked for it?-I did.

8589. Was that the practice then?-Yes; but I never asked for money unless I required it.

8590. You wanted goods oftener?-Yes.

8591. How far is it from Voe to your place?-About three miles.

8592. Is Mr. Adie's the nearest shop to you?-No. Brae is nearer than Voe.

8593. But you dealt at Voe, because you were fis.h.i.+ng for Mr.

Adie?-I dealt some at Brae too; but mostly at Voe.

8594. Was that because you had an account there?-Yes.

8595. And it was more convenient for you sometimes to deal upon credit?-Yes.

8596. I suppose you would get a larger advance in goods at that shop than you would have got if you were to ask money?-I don't know; I only asked for goods when I was needing them.

8597. But if you had asked money with which to go and buy your goods elsewhere, would you have got it?-I cannot say, for I never asked it.

8598. Have you heard the evidence of Robertson and Wood, and the other fishermen who have been examined to-day?-Yes.

8599. Have you anything different to say from what they said about the system of dealing among the fishermen here?-No.

8600. Have you known fishermen changing from one employment to another?-I have.

8601. Have you done that yourself?-No.

8602. You have always fished for Mr. Adie?-Yes.

8603. What is the general reason for the men s.h.i.+fting?-I don't know. I suppose it is because they think they will be better.

8604. How are they better, when the same price is always paid at the end of the year by all the curers?-I cannot see where they can be better by s.h.i.+fting from one man to another; I never felt that I would be any better to do so.

8605. I understand all the merchants hereabout pay the same current price for fish?-Yes. Mr. Adie proposed a stated agreement to me for fis.h.i.+ng herring. The herrings in Shetland then were 7s. a cran, and he agreed that he would give us 8s. a cran; but we have only got 8s. a cran for two years. The price varies with the agreement in each year; sometimes we get 13s. a cran, sometimes 10s., and sometimes 12s.-just up and down.

8606. Do you generally go to the herring fis.h.i.+ng every year?-Yes.