Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 349

14,866. Were you running an account with the agent at that time?-No.

14,867. Were you running an account with the agent at the other time when you got money from the Society?-The first time I was.

I had an account with Mr. Reid Tait then, and I got the money from him which I had to get from the Society.

14,868. Do you know whether you pay insurance for your outfit when you get one?-I have done so, but not during the last two years.

14,869. Why?-Because I always insured so much on the voyage myself, perhaps upon 7 or 8.

14,870. Why do you do that?-In case the ship is lost, and then of course we get that paid to us until the insurance is taken off.

14,871. Who do you arrange that with?-With the agent who takes out the insurance for us-Mr. Leask or any of the agents. They take 1s. 8d. per 1 for insuring.

14,872. Is that for insuring the ship?-Yes.

14,873. Then it is not the agent's advance to you that is insured?- Perhaps they insure that themselves, but I don't know whether we pay for it or not.

14,874. Is the insurance you have mentioned the only one you pay?-Yes; the only one I pay, to my knowledge.

14,875. Do you get any writing for that insurance?-It has never been asked.

14,876. Has it ever been offered to you?-No; it never was offered that I have been aware of, because we always had to go to the ship and leave here to go south. Therefore I wrote to my wife to go to the merchant about the insurance.

14,877. Do you not join the ship at Lerwick?-Yes; but we are landed in Shetland from the sealing, and the vessel goes south and discharges her oil, and then they send for us to go south and join the ship there. That has been done during the last two years.

14,878. When you get your wife to insure for you, where does she go?-She goes to Mr. Leask.

14,879. Do you not know whether Mr. Leask charges you with an insurance upon your outfit?-No; at least I never was sensible of it.

14,880. Do you not read over your account when you settle it?- Yes, but I never observed that in it.

14,881. Is there no sum for insurance charged in it?-Not to my knowledge; but it may have escaped my notice.

14,882. How does your wife pay for the insurance which you effect?-I pay for it myself at the end of the voyage.

14,883. Who told you about the insurance first?-Mr. Leask or some of his people. I don't know any of them in particular; but of course we have always done it.

Lerwick, January 29, 1872, ARTHUR JOHNSON, examined.

14,884. Are you a tenant and fisherman at Colafirth, near Ollaberry?-I am.

14,885. Do you go to the ling fishing every year?- [Page 375]

Yes. I was one year a hired boy, and I have been thirty-three years a sharesman.

14,886. On whose land are you a tenant?-On that of Mr. Gideon Anderson, Ollaberry. It is let on tack to Mr. John Anderson, his brother, and to Mr. John Robertson, Lerwick.

14,887. How do you pay your rent?-We pay our rent at Hillswick to Mr. John Anderson.

14,888. Is that done when you settle for your fish?-We have to go a day or two after we have settled for our fishing, and pay our rent to Mr. Anderson. We get a line from the man we have settled with and go to Mr. Anderson with it, and then he writes us out a receipt for the rent. We do not get the money to give to him at all.

14,889. Do you settle with Mr. William Irvine at Ollaberry?-Yes.

14,890. Are you bound to sell your fish to him?-He is only the factor for Messrs. Anderson & Co. We are bound to sell our fish to them.

14,891. Are you not at liberty to sell your fish to any other person you please?-Not in the summer time. We have not had liberty to do so for the last four years.

14,892. How do you know that?-Because Mr. John Anderson has told us so himself.

14,893. Have you wished to sell your summer fish to any other person?-Yes. If I was at liberty I could have an advantage by it.

I have cured my own fish for nineteen years.

14,894. What advantage would you have by doing that?-We sell to more advantage when we are at liberty, but now we get less from Mr. Anderson than we got before for our salt fish, and we get from 1 to 30s. per ton less than he paid to other men who were free men. Last year he paid the free men 22, and he paid me 20, 10s. for salt fish.

14,895. Was it Mr. Irvine who did that?-Yes. He settled according to Mr. Anderson's order. Mr. Irvine is only the factor, and keeps the shop.

14,896. Were you not free to sell your cured fish to any person you pleased?-I did not think it.

14,897. But probably your cured fish were not of such good quality as those which brought 22?-I would put my character for having good fish against that of any man, because we attended to the curing of our fish ourselves. We only had a boy for washing, but we split and cured them ourselves, and we paid them all the attention we could. I know that the quality was good, because those who knew good fish told us so and I also knew it myself.

14,898. But when you got 20, 10s. offered to you, why did you not take your fish to another market if you thought you could get a better price for them?-It was not in my power then, because the fish were in Leith; they had been shipped there.

14,899. Did you deliver your dried fish without knowing what price you were to get for them?-Yes.

14,900. Why did you do that?-We must do it. We had no cellars of our own, and we had to put them into Mr. Anderson's cellar.

14,901. Why did you not get the price fixed before you delivered them?-Because that is not the practice. When we deliver our fish, they tell us they don't know the price.

14,902. Did you not see the bills of sale after the fish were sold in Leith?-No, I never see them.

14,903. Might you not have seen them if you had asked for it?-I never asked for it.

14,904. Then you have no reason to believe that you got less for your fish than they actually brought when sold in Leith?-I cannot say what the Leith price was.

14,905. But you could have seen the bills of sale if you had asked for them?-I do not think I would have been allowed to see the bills of sale.

14,906. You cannot be sure of that unless you had asked for them?-No, I cannot be sure of that; but I don't believe they would have been shown to me.

14,907. Why did you not ask for them?-I don't know.

14,908. Were you afraid to do that?-No, I was not afraid; but it did not occur to me to do so. I know that last year I was stopped from selling my fish, and free men were paid 8s. 6d., while I was only paid 8s. for them.

14,909. Was that for your green fish?-Yes.

14,910. Then what fish were you selling dry?-Ling, tusk, and cod.

14,911. Were these your winter fish?-No, they were the summer fish.

14,912. But I thought you were bound to deliver your fish green to Mr. Anderson?-No. We had been in the practice of salting them before we delivered them, and we continued to do so until last year; but he stopped us from salting them then.