Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 150

Brae, January 10, 1872, CHARLES YOUNG, examined

5773. What are you?-I am a fisherman at Stenness.

5774. How long have you been there?-For twenty years.

5775. Do you hold land there?-No.

5776. For whom do you fish?-For Mr. John Anderson, Hillswick.

5777. Do you go to the home fishing?-Yes.

5778. How far is Stenness from Hillswick?-About three miles. I do not live at Stenness. I live in the south part of North Mavine, at Manaster, about twelve miles from Stenness.

5779. Do you go to Stenness merely for the fishing?-Yes.

5780. Has Mr. Anderson a station there?-Yes; only in summer and harvest.

5781. Has Mr. Adie also a station at Stenness?-Yes.

5782. How long have you fished for Mr. Anderson?-I have fished for about seventeen years for Anderson Brothers. I fished for two years at Ollaberry, and I fished for the time I have mentioned for Anderson & Co.

5783. How are you paid for your fish? Do you get most of your payment in goods or in cash at settling time?-I have got most in cash.

5784. What is the time for settling?-The settling time commences about 12th November, but for some years we have generally settled from 26th to 27th November.

5785. Do you generally get your supplies during the fishing season from Mr Anderson at Stenness?-Yes.

5786. Where is your family supplied? -I do not require much supplies for my family, I can buy them at any shop in the neighbourhood.

5787. Is there any shop at Manaster from which your family are supplied?-No. The most part of my dealing has been with Mr.

Anderson, but I sometimes deal with Mr. Inkster at Brae, or any shop I may have occasion to go to.

5788. Are your family generally supplied by Mr. Anderson at Hillswick?-No; not as a general rule.

5789. Do you run an account with Mr. Anderson?-Yes.

5790. The two sides are balanced at the end of the year in November, and you generally get a good part of your payment in cash?-Yes.

5791. Do you get advances in money during the fishing season?- Not unless I require them; but if require them, I can get them.

5792. Do you ask for them as a favour?-No.

5793. Do you want the money for some particular purpose when you ask for it?-Yes.

5794. Do you always get it when you ask it?-Yes. I asked for 5 this year, about the beginning of the fishing, and I got it without any difficulty.

5795. Do you also get any reasonable quant.i.ty of goods you want?-Yes.

5796. Are the goods supplied to you at Stenness or at Hillswick?- To a certain extent at Stenness, and for the greater part at Hillswick.

5797. Do you go there for them?-Yes.

5798. Do you get both meal and clothing there?-Yes; I generally get them there in the summer season for the fishing.

5799. Is the meal there of good quality and reasonable price?- Yes; it is about the same as in other parts of the country.

5800. Would you have any advantage if you were going to another dealer for your meal and clothing?-I don't think I could have any.

5801. You think you get your goods as good and as cheap as you could desire?-Yes; they are as good and as cheap, there as at any other part of the island.

5802. Or at Stenness?-Yes; it is not much clothing they have at that place. It is only a temporary place, where they keep supplies for the men during the fishing season.

5803. Then the way in which you deal is very much the same as has been described by the witnesses from [Page 144]

Mossbank?-Yes; I cannot say there is much difference.

5804. You are not obliged to fish for any person in particular?- No.

5805. You are a free man?-Yes.

5806. Do you generally get a balance in cash at the end of the year?-Yes.

5807. Would you rather be paid all at once in cash?-Yes.

5808. Why don't you manage to get that done?-I can hardly say; circ.u.mstances won't allow it. Sometimes the reason for it arises from the way in which we are placed as a crew of men. The curers will sometimes object to give it to one man in a boat's crew, unless all the men were alike.

5809. And all the men would not wish it in cash?-There are not many who would not wish for it in cash.

5810. Why could not the whole of the boat's crew get it in cash?- Because some of the men have got behind, and they cannot manage to go on throughout the rest of the season unless they get supplies from the curer.

5811. They are in the curer's debt at the commencement?-Yes, or perhaps they might be free men; but they have no opportunity of supplying themselves with anything until the end of the fishing.

5812. Therefore, when there are one or two men in boat's crew who are in that position, the curer objects to give cash payments to the others?-I cannot say that, because I have not seen it asked by the rest; but we have been conforming to the old practice that has been going on of fishing to the curers, and being paid by them at the end of the season.

5813. Do you want any change in the system?-The only change I would want in the system would be to know what I was working for. I should like to see a change in that respect.

5814. Would you like to have a price fixed at the beginning of the year?-Yes; before I commenced to fish, because according to the system we are proceeding on now we might go to the fishing, and at the end of the fishing season or at the end of the year when they settle with us, the merchants could pay us if they liked with 2s. a cwt.

5815. Do they not come under an obligation to pay you what is the current price at the end of the season?-It is not very often that we enter into engagements of any kind. The men who are free men generally fish for them, and they just fish upon an understanding that they are to be paid the country currency.

5816. But it is understood that they are to be paid the country currency?-Yes.

5817. And you would be ent.i.tled to get the country currency in any case?-Yes; but if the fish were going down as low as they might do, we would still only get the currency.

5818. Do you mean that the fish are sometimes higher earlier in the season than they are at the end?-No; what I mean is that the price varies very much. I have seen the price 4s. 6d. a cwt. in some years, and 8s. in other years; and if the price were to go below 4s. 6d., we would still only be paid according to that. But if we had a fixed price before we went to sea at all, I think that would be better. If there had been an average price fixed at the commencement of the season while I have been fishing, I would have been better satisfied in my own mind, because I would have known what I was working for. In that way the curer would have the advantage in some years, and in other years we might have the advantage.

5819. Do you think there would be any difficulty in getting the fishermen to stick to their bargain, if there was an arrangement of that kind made at the beginning of the season?-I fear there might be some difficulty with some of them.