Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 368

15,733. Do you limit the credits of the men employed in the home fishing?-They limit their credits themselves, because they are grown-up men with families, and they know how far they should run their accounts. Of course, if they were running them further, we would limit them; but we rarely have to do that, because we know they must have the little which they do get.

15,734. Is not that the case with the Faroe fishermen also?-Yes; we limit them too.

15,735. But I understand you to say that the necessity for limiting the home fishermen is greater than in the case of the Faroe fishermen?-Yes.

15,736. Why is that?-Because I consider the home fishing is not so good a fishing: the earnings from it are not so great.

15,737. You said you knew quite well what the men are likely to earn in the ling fishing?-Yes. I can tell from my experience the outside which any ling fisherman can earn.

15,738. Do you know that before the season begins?-Yes. By taking five or six years together, I can see what a man has done in time past, and I don't expect that he will exceed it.

15,739. Do you think that any five years of a fisherman's life will give an average from which you can calculate his probable take for next year?-Yes; I think five years is quite sufficient.

15,740. The variation, I suppose, arises from the nature of the season?-Yes; in stormy weather they cannot go to sea so often as in good seasons, and in other times the fish do not come over the ground so well as they did before. Another thing is the herring fishing, which is connected with the ling fishing, the same boats being used for both purposes.

15,741. Are you engaged in it extensively?-No, not very extensively. I think we have about 10 or 11 boats altogether which fish in the herring fishery.

15,742. Is the engagement of the fishermen in the herring fishing similar to that which exists in the ling fishing?-It is exactly the same.

15,743. They are paid according to the current price at the end of the season, and that price is settled for at the same time as the price for the ling fishing?-Yes; they are both settled for together.

15,744. Do the returns which you have furnished with regard to the home fishing include in any of the answers the earnings from the herring fishing?-Yes; they apply to both ling and herring put together. In fact they apply to everything that the man has earned in the years to which the questions relate.

15,745. Do you think it would be practicable to introduce a cash system into Shetland in place of the annual settlements which now exist?-It would be better for the curer. I don't know if it would be better for the fishermen altogether. I think it would be better for perhaps one half or two thirds of them; but the other third, I am afraid, could not get on at all with the cash system.

15,746. Do you think they would have a difficulty in living over the first half of the year?-Yes; over winter or spring, until the fishing had commenced.

15,747. Do you think it would be impossible for them to get advances during that time in order to keep them going?-If they were to be paid in cash, the fish-curer of course would not give them anything until they brought the fish to him, and other people would be inclined to say the same thing. The man would merely have to be trusted like any other man going into any shop and purchasing goods on his own credit.

15,748. But, except for that difficulty, you would prefer a cash system?-I would.

15,749. Do you think there would be any difficulty in carrying out that system, supposing it were once begun, the men had tided over that transition period?-I think there would be none whatever.

15,750. Would it be possible to pay the men fortnightly or monthly, or at delivery?-I would pay them weekly.

15,751. Would you pay them the whole proceeds of the fish caught during the week?-I would pay them exactly for every tail they landed. I would fix a price with them at first, before they began to the fishing at all; but that price might be altered weekly, according the markets went up or down, the same as in any other trade.

15,752. Do you think the fishermen would agree to that?-We have asked them to agree to it, but they have not done so.

15,753. Was that because they did not like to have the price fixed and thus lose the chance of a rising market?-It was not so much the fixing of the price that they objected to. They would have agreed to that, but some of them who did not know where to find means said, 'What are we to do if we get no cash for a week or two in stormy weather, and we cannot go off; the merchant cannot supply us then.' Of course they could not expect us to supply them with anything after we had commenced with that system.

15,754. If the man was bound to fish for you, would you not be willing to give him supplies?-But they would not be bound to fish at all in that case.

15,755. But the men might be bound to fish for you all the season, although they were paid weekly?-I would not care to engage anybody then for the season. I would have a station at a certain place, [Page 397] with weights there, and I would pay for the fish as I got them.

15,756. Was that the nature of the offer which you made to the fishermen, and which they would not accept?-Yes. We would have no hold over the fishermen in that case at all.

15,757. Would it not be quite practicable to engage the men for the whole season and to pay them weekly?-It would be quite practicable.

15,758. Have you made an offer to them of that description?- Yes; we have made an offer to some fishermen who fish for us now.

15,759. Did you offer to engage them to fish for you for the whole season?-Yes. If they commenced, they would never think of changing.

15,760. In that case would there be any reluctance on the part of the fish-curer to make an advance to the men in a bad week if they were bound to fish for him over the whole season?-I should not care to do it because they might get no more fish after a certain date. At the end of the year the weather is very often such that the men cannot go off for weeks, and we might be advancing on the prospect of what never came, and then the men would be in debt.

15,761. In the case you refer to, were the fishermen not willing to accept your offer?-They were not willing.

15,762. Do you think it would have made any difference in that respect if the offer had been to pay a proportion of the price-say a minimum price of 5s. 6d. or so for ling-and that the balance should be paid according to the current price at the end of the season?-I don't know how that would do. I never spoke about that with the men. I think that would be giving them two chances.

It would be giving them the cash, and then giving them the full value of the market after I had paid out my cash so much sooner than I would otherwise have done. When a thing is sold, it is sold, and you take your chance either to lose or to gain, but in that case the fishermen would have the cash in their hands, and they would also have the chance of benefiting by a rise in the price.

15,763. But in other trades, merchants have to lay out their cash in wages and take their chance of a return?-Yes; and I would do the same.

15,764. You would do the same if the men were paid wages, but would you not be prepared to make part of the wages dependent upon the market price of the fish?-No. I hold that in a business transaction, if a party agrees to sell, and you agree to purchase, the one takes his chance, and you take your chance too. That would bring each party to an understanding of how matters stood between them. If it was the practice altogether to purchase the fish green, and to pay for them in money, there would be so many people in compet.i.tion for them that the men would be sure to get the full value, because, if I gave 6d. more, another man would be sure to give 6d. more if he could afford it, and the men would not lose by that. The fish would go up to the very top price, and the men would reap the advantage.

15,765. Do you think there would be always two or three competing merchants at each station?-Certainly there would.

The stations are only half a mile apart; and if one man would not offer the price, another would do so.

15,766. Are your curers paid by weekly wages?-We have one curer paid by weekly wages.

15,767. Do you cure by contract?-Yes, as well as by wage.

15,768. How many people are employed in your curing establishment during the season?-I cannot say, because some go on for a week or two, and others go on at the end of that time; but we will have as high as forty and as low as twenty people who are not off work.

15,769. How are these people paid?-They are paid weekly by a daily wage on Sat.u.r.day night.

15,770. Do they receive payment of their whole wages in cash?- Every penny.

15,771. Are they paid in cash even if they have had out-takes during the week?-They have no out-takes; we don't give them.

15,772. Is yours the only establishment in Shetland, so far as you know, where that is the practice?-So far as I know, I believe it is; but I am not certain. The only other one where I thought it was done was Leask's; but I happened to be present last day when Mr.

Robertson was examined, and I heard him say that they did give credit, which I did not know before.

15,773. Has it been long the practice in your establishment not to give credit to your weekly workers?-It has been the practice for about five years.

15,774. Have you found it to facilitate your transactions very much?-Yes; and it was for that reason we gave up the practice of giving credit. When we first commenced to cure at Bressay, we paid by weekly wages; but the people usually wanted some advances before the Sat.u.r.day night, and we found in a short time that we were losing money by bad debts while a great deal of time was involved in settling with them on the Sat.u.r.days. In fact it took up so much time, and caused so much trouble, that we stopped it altogether.

15,775. How did the bad debts occur?-The girls wanted to take up clothing, and on Sat.u.r.day night they required food for another week, and we found they took up too much.

15,776. Have you found that the people are now contented with the system which you have introduced?-They are quite contented.

15,777. They don't come to you wanting out-takes?-Never.

15,778. Do you find they get on quite comfortably under the present system?-Yes. What took us hours before to settle, we can settle now in the course of half an hour.

15,779. Don't you think the fishermen might manage to get on under the cash system if it were introduced in the same way that you have done with your workers in the curing establishment?- The fishermen are different thing. The fish have first to be caught before they are paid for; whereas, in the other case, the people are engaged for a weekly wage, which they are certain to get.

Lerwick, January 30, 1872, CHARLOTTE JOHNSTON, examined.