Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 23

1 Wages of four hired men (generally strangers from the Highlands or Islands) and a boy, ...... 3000 2. Their lodgings, ..... 30 0 3. Their allowance of meal, .... 40 0 4. Cost of barking nets, .... 300 5. Cartage and drying-green for nets,. . 300 6. Harbour dues,..... 100 4400

But taking into account that accidentally many nets are lost or destroyed in each year, and that the fishing is prosecuted in boats, and with nets more or less worn, and that thus there is need of considerable annual repair and replacement, it will be seen that in the ordinary case the expense of a fishing season is largely greater than in the case of an adventure, with a new boat and drift. Thus the expense, as above,.....

440 0 Replacing 4 nets,..... 140 0 Repairing drift,..... 20 0 Repairing and tarring boat, barking ropes, sails, etc. , ...... 20 0 To which falls to be added, to meet the annual deterioration of the boat 10 0 0 72 0 0

It follows that the fisherman can have no advantage from the Caithness herring-fishing unless his boat clears a sum of 72, or thereabout, in which case the surplus over that amount will const.i.tute his profit.

But if the fisherman has borrowed the money invested in the boat and nets, it is apparent that his annual burden is increased by the sum of interest which he must pay for it. And this leads to reference to a local custom of some importance. If the fisherman has borrowed the money to purchase his boat and nets, or if, as is usually the case, he receives them from a fish-curer to whom he thus becomes debtor for their value, he does so on the condition -- very natural in the circ.u.mstances -- that he shall deliver all his fish to the creditor as long as he remains in debt. In such a case the price of the herrings is not fixed by contract, but is 'the general terms' of price conceded by fish-curers to fishermen in their debt; and these terms are generally about 20 per cent. below the price paid by the curers to men free of debt, and able to bargain beforehand concerning it. This is so while interest is charged on the amount of the debt, or while the fisherman is charged with 'boat's deal' as he usually is, when the debt is not wiped off within the second year.

For the years 1860-70, the average annual take of herrings was only 86 crans. The average price is not stated in any tabular form, but it certainly did not amount to 1 per cran under 'the general terms' system. Thus, a.s.suming that that portion of the herring fleet held by fishermen in debt fished its fair average of these eleven years, it will be seen that the total sum realized but barely sufficed to meet the necessary outlays of the season, and to pay interest on the capital involved

This average, however, represents the mean of success and failure.

In every year a few boats fish largely in excess of the average, and a still larger number fall more or less short of it. The latter lose money, if they have money to lose. They who have none fall into debt, or into deeper debt. It is said that fully two-thirds of the fishermen are in debt, and pursue this extensive enterprise burdened with all the disadvantages of debt. Their debts range from all kinds of figures up to 300.

Still there is no such thing as truck; and payment, when payment is owing, is made in cash. In the case of men free of debt, the price, being fixed, is at once paid at the close of the fishing, or soon thereafter. In the case of men in debt, circ.u.mstances make the settlement more complicated. At the outset of his career the fisherman is desirous of standing as little as possible in debt to his curer. One or two unsuccessful seasons or seasons of but partial success quickly change his view and he becomes eager to lay as much of the burden of the fishing as possible on the fishcurer.

Thus, when he wants nets, he calls on the curer to guarantee payment to the seller of nets. He gets tar, and cutch, and ropes in the same way. The curer guarantees payment of the wages, meal, and other supplies of the crew; and of the cartage of the nets, and the rent of their drying ground. All these are, of course, debited in the fisherman's account. Generally the curer pays off all those claims that require instant settlement at the close of the fishing season. If things have gone fairly well, he may make the man a payment in cash at the same time; but the final settlement of the year is postponed till Martinmas, when, if cash is owing, it is paid.

If no balance accrues to the fisherman, his account is handed to him; and if he is a crofter, or a reliable man the curer advances to him 12 or 20, to pay his rent and tide him over the hard times in winter. Sometimes the curer a.s.sists his fishermen debtors by supplies of meal for their families in winter, the meal being procured by the curer's orders to millers or meal dealers.

It is tolerably certain that the curer receives an abatement or discount from the merchant's prices of the meal, goods, ropes, nets, or other things which the fishermen procure on his guarantee. But sometimes the guarantee is an open one, with which the fisherman goes to any merchant he chooses making the best bargain he can.

Thus the basis of the system in this, the herring-fishing, is also mainly one of cash payments. On the first relation of it, too, it seems a system conducted in very liberal ways, inasmuch as the fish-curers are prompt to supply the capital, or the boat and materials equivalent to the capital, needed by the fisherman, and to pay him promptly the whole profits. But this, a thing unusual in ordinary commercial dealings, lays the system open to suspicion; and it is, in fact, highly objectionable, and replete with hard and injurious consequences to the fishermen. Take an ordinary case. A fisherman has made a lucky fishing with an old boat, and finds himself at the end of the year clear of debt, or near to that fortunate condition. He has for years used the old boat, as he knows, at a serious disadvantage, for the old boat and defective gearing are insufficient to carry the fisherman twenty or more miles from sh.o.r.e nightly, and at such distances the shoals of herrings often are. His curer will give him a boat one year old, and he takes it, agreeing to pay for it what it originally cost the curer. If the old boat is worth anything, the curer will take it in part payment. But thus the fisherman at once becomes debtor in a 100 or thereby, and bound to fish on 'general terms.' He has probably been so bound all his fishing career. In the same way, a fish-curer will readily trust a boat to a smart young fisherman wishing to start on his own account. Of course, the curer takes care that he has power by writing to seize the boat again, if necessary for his security.

It is commonly calculated that few men fish over 100 crans of herrings oftener than in one season out of five and all the chances are that our fisherman will do little to reduce his debt for some years to come. If the price is not paid by a lucky fishing in the first year, but runs unpaid to a second or third, the curer generally charges the man with deal for the boat, 10 or 14 as may be, and this year after year; so that, when at last the price is paid, and the fisherman gets free, the boat has actually cost him 150 or more.

This, however, only occurs with fish-curers who are of a lower cla.s.s than the most respectable. The leading men in the trade generally credit the sums paid as deal in the final settlement of the boat's price.

The probabilities are that the fisherman will increase the debt year after year, for some years. Then the curer takes from him a sale-note of the boat and of his drift. The boat is beached, so as to preserve the curer's right to it. The nets are sent to his store. The generosity of the original transaction disappears. It is, of course, understood that the boat and nets may be redeemed; but in many cases interest is added to the debt year after year, the deal is always charged for the boat, and the fisherman loses about 20 per cent. of his earnings by the 'general terms.' The sense of failure operates injuriously on the man, perhaps makes him negligent. He finds the curer disinclined to increase the debt by an additional advance of money just when money is most necessary to him for subsistence, and things go on from bad to worse. At last his year of luck comes round. He fishes 100 or 120 crans, perhaps 200 crans. His debt is reduced so as to be fairly less than the value of the boat and drift. Then he may go on for another course of the same risk and indebtedness. But not unfrequently the curer at this juncture closes the transaction by retaining and appropriating the boat and drift, and dismissing the man. The appropriation is made not seldom without any valuation of the property, and the man is dismissed without discharge or balancing of the debt.

The disadvantages of this system to the fishermen are apparent, and are really very great. , Responsibility for the whole expenses of the fishing is cast upon them, while really the boats and nets are the fishcurer's. , They are charged with the maintenance of these boats and nets, in effect to keep the curer's capital put into their hands as near to its original value as possible.

, They pay interest in some cases, and not seldom an arbitrary profit on part of the capital in form of boat's deal.

, They receive 20 per cent. less for their fish than free fishermen do.

The disadvantages of the fishermen are the advantages of the fish-curers. But these advantages are not wholly unmixed. The fish-curer has not only in the majority of cases to find the boats and nets, but to disburse all the charges of the fishing where the proceeds of the catch are insufficient to do it, and 'to keep on'

the fishermen by advances for their food and rents. Thus the aggregate of the debts is a continual strain on the curer's capital, and payment is as uncertain as the chances of fishermen individually getting extraordinary hauls of fish. There is still further the risk of the debtor dying, in which event the debt is wholly lost beyond the value of the boat and nets. On the death of a fish-curer recently, his books were found to contain about 16,000 of debts due to him by fishermen, and these for the most part valueless. Still, if the system were not advantageous to the curers, it is plain that they would not conduct their trade in so questionable a method.

The fisherman's profits in good years are swallowed up by the charges and drawbacks of bad and indifferent years, unless happily there be for him a succession of good years. But, considering how little the average value of the fishing exceeds the actual outlays of the year, it is not surprising that this great fishing should be carried on under a ma.s.s of debt, spread over fully two-thirds of the fleet.

It is unquestionably a national misfortune that any great enterprise like the Caithness herring-fishing should be conducted under such serious disadvantages, and with such unfortunate results to the large and adventurous cla.s.s of men who labour in it.

These results are mainly owing to the great error of the fishermen in accepting the use of capital on terms unreasonably to their own disadvantage, standing debtor for the whole charges of the fishing, and submitting to the large deduction of 20 per cent. on the value of their fish. But they do it with their eyes open; and it is of contract, partly expressed and partly understood, and regulated by local custom. If it were desirable to regulate the arrangements of the trade by Act of Parliament, and if it were provided (1) that no person could advance money or money's worth to a fisherman, with the view of engaging in or equipping him for the fishing, without thereby const.i.tuting himself a partner of the fisherman, to the extent of such advance, proportionately to the value of the boat, drift of nets, etc. possessed by the fisherman and used in the fishing, and becoming liable as such partner for a proportional share of the charges of the fisherman's adventure, and (2) that the custom of fixing the price 'by general terms' be abolished; the trade would, it is thought, soon revert to legitimate methods of dealing. The real capitalist would share the risks and generally engross them; while the labour and zeal of the individual fisherman, who may have only his labour and zeal to give, would find their value in wages or other remuneration. But it is not to be denied that any such legislation would be extremely arbitrary and indefensible in principle.

It should here be stated that what the fishermen earn in white-fishing, and in the winter and Lewis herring-fishing, is always paid in cash, irrespective of the debt resting owing in respect of the Caithness herring-fishing. The individual debtor of the herring-fishing is lost in the five, six, or eight joint-adventurers who man the boats in the fishings first mentioned.

The men who hire themselves as boatmen for the herring-fishing season bargain for wages to be paid in cash at the end of the season. These wages vary from 4 to 8, according to the skill or strength of the boatman. Besides the money wages, these men have lodgings and cooking of their food supplied to them, and each receives a stone of meal weekly. The money wage is payable at the close of the fishing, and is always paid in cash. The number of men so employed is about 4000 at Wick alone.

These men make their engagements with the boatmasters, who, as already stated, are ostensibly owners of the boats. They used to experience much hardship by the failure of the boatmasters to pay them in bad years. To enforce payment was difficult, for the fish-curers were invariably found to be the owners of the boats and nets, the sole possessions of the boatmasters. This has come to be remedied to a great extent by the men refusing to engage without receiving a guarantee for payment by the curer.

With regard to coopers, they are engaged for terms longer or shorter, to make barrels at current wages or rates, and payments are fortnightly and always in cash.

The women employed in gutting and curing the herring are engaged for the season. They are paid 6d. per barrel, and 1s. 3d.

a day for repacking and filling up the barrels. 1500 of them may be employed. The payments are made in cash at the end of the season.

Thus it will be seen that the whole business of the Caithness fishings is based on cash payments; and if it were not for the specialties of the herring-fishing, the whole would be sound and equitable. These specialties operate so extensive an injury, that they well merit the attention of the Legislature.

It remains to be noticed that the inducements to engage in the herring-fishing under all the disadvantages set forth are very great.

It has all the precarious and enticing character of a lottery. Every year a few lucky men fish large hauls, exceeding 200 in value in the brief fishing season. As a rule, fishermen marry young; and how can the young fisherman so easily procure the means or chance of livelihood as by accepting the boat and nets which the curer so readily offers? But, apart from any such special prompting, our fishermen, essentially venturous, all too eagerly incur the debt and risk a life of indebtedness for the chance of winning the comparative comfort to which a few, a very few, of their cla.s.s attain. I know of no cla.s.s requiring protection from their own recklessness in these contracts more than do the fishermen of Caithness.

III.-- EXTRACTS FROM LETTER FROM REV. MR. ARTHUR, UYEA SOUND, UNST.

UYEA SOUND, 1. 1872.

I have yours of the 26th Jan. '72, making inquiries about the price and quality of provisions, etc. in the Fair Isle. When I arrived there in summer '70, my furniture and provisions I had brought with me from Edinburgh had not arrived, through the gross misconduct of Mr. Bruce's skipper; so I had no alternative but to get provisions from his store, the only shop in the island. Tea, equal to 2s. or 2s. 2d. a pound in Glasgow, which I had tried from curiosity, was sold to me for 4s.; sugar (East India brown) worth 31/2d. a pound, cost 7d.; soap, the same; coa.r.s.e biscuit (the only bread), 4d. a pound. All these articles were, I conceived, about 100 per cent. above the ordinary selling price, or profits, in other places. I afterwards bought other articles, but I forget the price, and could not tell the profits.

Meal is the great demand of the island, besides tea,tobacco, etc. I heard great complaints of the price of the meal, but I needed none.

They said the bere-meal cost about 20s. a boll, but they did not know the precise price till settling day, once a year or two years.

Then they hadto pay whatever Mr. Bruce chose to name, after it was all eaten. He kept off the price from that of their fish; and there too, they had to take whatever he named. I found from an Orkney newspaper that bere-meal was selling there at 13s. a boll.

As the meal was bought with their own money, and the price of their own fish of last year, I suppose a penny letter could order 100 bolls, shipped at Aberdeen or Kirkwall; the price of carriage to Lerwick would be, say 6d. a boll; then conveyed to Fair Isle in Mr.

Bruce's own vessel, with a reasonable freight would clear about one thousand per cent. on the actual outlay or he would pocket 30 for a penny letter.

The people 'were restricted (as you say you have been informed) to buy from any one else, both by word and writing, and by the fact that they had nothing to pay it with till July last from 1869-1871.

Mr. Bruce tried to establish a complete monopoly, but he did not altogether succeed. Others came and undersold him vastly, though even they were VERY DEAR, and would not sell above high- water mark. Every time any one came to the island to sell tea, sugar, coffee, soap, etc., it was reported that any one buying from such would get their warning to leave the island--the grand and only punishment known there. Of course, they all bought more or less secretly or openly and none were turned away I was at first astounded to find they did not believe a word I said, and I soon learned not to believe a word they said. I don't mean all were liars alike, but only a stranger can't tell whom to trust.

One seller came three times to the island that summer(1870) and took away a good deal of money and goods each time. I bought bread, sugar, fowls, etc, for Mr Bruce's laws did not apply to me Good sugar 6d. a pound, would have cost 5d. and 51/2d.

in Glasgow. Soap equally cheap, I was told. Bread 2d. above Kirkwall price, a 4 lb. loaf 8d. instead of 6d. at Kirkwall.

This man and his boat's crew of two or three men remained six days on one occasion in good weather selling and collecting accounts, and took away cattle, etc. It was in regard to him that the notice was stuck up in the store window by Mr Bruce that he advised his tenants not to deal with strangers, nor to receive them into their houses.

As to the fish, the people complained that they got 9d. a cwt. less than those at Sumburgh for the same fish; their prices varying from 2s. 6d. to 3s., about 25 per cent. below the same article twenty-four miles distant, so that 75 would pay as much fish there as 100 at Sumburgh. If the Sumburgh fishermen complain you may guess what the islanders will do if they dare speak out. I am told the Unst fishermen have got this year 8s. a cwt. for cod and ling -- the cod-fish of Fair Isle are bought at half-price. When I was there for my furniture in July last I asked for curiosity, what they got for their fish as Mr. Bruce was there settling. They said 2s. 9d. and 3s. that would be 5s 6d. and 6s. for cod. Now 6s. is to 8s. as 75 is to 100. If the fish are not paid till a year or two after they are delivered, the only capital required is the outlay for salt; and I should think 20 of salt should serve 200 of clear profit on the fish -- equal to 1000 per cent. on the outlay as

You may think their plots of ground are let cheap with a view to profit on the fish. The reverse is the fact. The price of land there is nearly double that of the lots I have priced in Sutherlandshire and the rest of Shetland The land is the source of the people's and . They say Mr. Bruce has doubled the rents since he got the island, four or five years ago and the tacksmen had overtaxed them before he got it. Many have left the island since then, on the plea of oppression voluntarily submitting to the only punishment they have to fear.

I received letters in October dated July, and none after till I came for them in March, although the people were fishing every month in the year, and we could speak the mail steamer going north twice in three trips. Going south, she is generally under night or very early in the morning. I have gone to the mail and spoken to the captain in October, November and December, and my letters and papers on board were carried fifty miles past me, to be obtained when anybody coming to the island chose to ask them; and thus I might obtain them in a few months, OR NEVER. And so of letters the island. Now, a few pounds could establish a post-office in the island and the mail steamer could deliver a bag forty or fifty times in the year when going north; indeed always, unless she pa.s.sed in a fog, or in the dark, or in a storm from a south or south-east wind. In a north wind, the harbour is perfectly calm, and the island shelters the steamer.

IV.--EXTRACT FROM LETTER BY WM. MOUAT, ESQ. OF GARTH, ADVOCATE, TO MACCULLOCH, AUTHOR OF 'THE HIGHLANDS AND WESTERN ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND'

(DISCOVERED AMONGST THE GARTH PAPERS IN MARCH 1872).

<2d november=""> 1820.

. . . With regard to the points in question, I think, if I can make myself understood, I should be able to satisfy you; but our mode of holding, or rather of describing property, is so different from anything practised either in England or Scotland, that I suspect it will be necessary to take a very elementary view before I can be sure of succeeding.

In the first place, then, there are no , or anything a.n.a.logous to them, either in the person of Lord Dundas or of any other person. The reason why you have heard his Lordship spoken of as so universal a proprietor in the commons is, that although his is only a third or fourth rate property, it is so much scattered, that there are few commons (scattales or scattholes) in the country in which he has not something to say, . The Crown is the universal superior, and all the land is freehold. It is true that Lord Dundas lately possessed over all the country, and does still possess over some few estates, the right to the Crown rents. These were the feu-duties exigible from the feued lands, and a payment called scatt, exigible both from Udal and feued land; but this was simply a right to collect the payments, and did not infer any right of superiority. Etymologically, scatt certainly seems to have some connection with , but practically it has none whatever, so far as the receiver is concerned, and is as to him simply a feu-duty. The opinion of the country, however, is so far in favour of the etymological view, that it is generally conceived that all towns ( townships) paying scatt have right to a share of the commons, while those who do not have none; but this point has never been settled by any judicial authority.

In the second place, you are mistaken in supposing that tenants pay no rent for the scattholds. Every township its own scatthold, the boundaries of which are, or ought to be, known. I say 'ought to be,' because I believe in many instances a knowledge of the marches has been lost. Any scatthold, therefore, is common merely as respects the township to which it belongs; and it is the exclusive property of the owners of that township, or, more strictly speaking, forms a part of the township itself. Each township consists of a certain number of merks. The following history of the origin of this term (which is our universal denomination of land, both in letting it to tenants and in conveying it from one proprietor to another) may help to explain its nature. It seems, then, to have arisen in the times when rents were fixed by public authority, each township being valued, , at so many merks of money as it was considered worth. The share of each landlord was then naturally said to consist of so many merks, because the rent was in fact his whole interest, the farmer being, according to the old Danish law, the real proprietor, and the landlord only a sort of lord of the manor. The term, by a very easy change, came, with the changes of laws, to apply to that portion of land which had originally paid a money merk of rent, but did not, and does not to this day, denote any particular spot or measurement, but merely such proportion of the whole township as had been equivalent to one money merk of rent, when the whole was valued at a given number. This hypothesis, for I acknowledge it is little more, at least gives a result corresponding precisely to our present idea of a merk of land, and also accounts for the great variety of contents which we find in merk, since, to be equal in value, they must have been of very different extent in different situations. The number of merks in each town is known from old records and traditions, or, practically, from the sum of all the proprietors. Thus, if in the town of M. 40 merks belong to A., 30 to B., and 20 to C., then is M. a town of 40 + 30 + 20 = 90 merks.

It is of no consequence here whether M. contains five acres or five hundred, 40-90ths of the whole belong to A., and 30-90ths to B., etc. And, on the other hand, the number of merks might be double, triple, or in any other proportion, without at all altering the extent or state of the property, except that the interest of each proprietor would be expressed by proportionally higher figures.

A. would have 80-180ths, B. 60-180ths, and so forth. In these circ.u.mstances, if a landlord lets to a tenant any given number of merks, it is just giving him a fractional share, of which the total number of merks in the town is the denominators, and the number let the numerator. A tenant taking ten merks in the above supposed town of M., would just have right to 10-90ths of the corn land, 10-90ths of the meadow land, 10-90ths of the stinted pasture within the d.y.k.e, and 10-90ths of the unstinted pasture, or 'scatthold,' without the d.y.k.e. But the rent is charged at so much per merk -- , the tenant does pay rent for the scatthold, Q.E.D.!!

I do not, however, allege that the rent thus paid is anything like what it might easily be under a better system.

That the rents were anciently fixed by public authority, is, I believe, an established fact, and there is reason to believe that the practice continued long after the transference of this country from Norway to Scotland, when, of course, it ceased to be law.

This practice, and the long period for which both rents and improvements were stationary, had produced so strong an impression upon our habits of thinking on this subject, that, at so late a period as to be distinctly within my own recollection, landlords, in general, had no clear practical confidence in their own right to demand a direct rise of rent, and, under this feeling, resorted, in many instances, to indirect methods of doing that which they had a right to have done openly and avowedly.

The sight of this sort of thing, without an understanding of the circ.u.mstances and habits of thinking which lie to it, gave superficial observers an idea that much oppression and injustice was exercised towards the tenantry, and produced much of that obloquy (some of which may possibly have fallen in your way) which has been thrown upon the Shetland landholders.

This idea has now, however, completely vanished, and many Shetland proprietors have let their lands at a raised money rent, without reserving any further claim upon the tenants: and if all have not done so, it arises from other causes, and not from any feeling of the kind described above, or from any inclination to take undue advantages.