Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 391

16,761. Is it the same kind of boats that are employed in all these different kinds of fishing?-No; the fishermen have different kinds of boats to suit the different kinds of fishing. In the herring season the owners have hired men in their boats, and each man has his skipper; whereas in the winter fishing five or six or seven of these men go together and fish for themselves.

16,762. But that is still in the same kind of boat is it not?-The half-decked boat is used at Wick; but, in fact, they have boats to suit each fishing that they wish to go to. They usually use the large herring boat for the cod fishing, and a smaller boat for the haddock fishing.

16,763. What is the size of a haddock boat?-I think it is about 26 or 30 feet keel, and open. There is now usually it small deck on it.

The large herring boat is from 36 to 42 feet keel; but the boats have increased greatly in size within the last eight or ten years.

16,764. Do you find that as the boats increase in size the fisherman is generally more successful?-Yes. They have the advantage of going a greater distance to sea and staying longer out when their boats are decked, and they return with heavier takes.

16,765. Are you acquainted, from your own experience, with the character of the boats which are used?-Yes. I have gone out to sea and seen how the fishing was carried on.

16,766. Would you consider that a fishing community was at great disadvantage, as compared with other communities, who used only open six-oared boats of about 21 or 22 feet keel?-They would be at a decided disadvantage.

16,767. Perhaps you are aware that that is the case in Shetland, and that in the haaf fishing they go out twenty or thirty miles to sea, and remain out only for it single night at a time?-If they had the large lugger boats which we have on this coast, they could stay out for several nights, having provisions with them and room for their fish.

16,768. Are the large boats you refer to equally available for laying long lines in very deep water and on a rocky bottom?-I cannot say that. There would be more danger with them. They could not work large boats so easily as they could work the small ones.

16,769. What is the depth of water in which your large boats generally fish?-I can hardly say; but when they go out to the banks, thirty or forty miles off, they may fish in thirty or forty fathoms of water in the Moray Firth.

16,770. Perhaps your knowledge of the fishing does not enable you to give much information about that?-No, not practically; but I have gone out three or four times in the season.

16,771. Do you know any district in Scotland or in England where the settlement with the fishermen takes place only once it year as it does in Shetland?-I understand there are two fishings in Shetland: the herring fishing, and the cod and ling fishing.

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16,772. It is the cod fishing I am speaking of. Do you know any place except Shetland where the settlement for any kind of fishing takes place only once a year?-I scarcely know how to answer that question.

16,773. In Shetland the cod and ling fishing is the only one in which they fish for the curers,-leaving the herring fishing out of account,-and they are paid for that only once a year, a considerable time after the end of the fishing. Do you know any of the fishing contracts in the kingdom which are settled at so long a period after the fishing is over?-In Orkney the fishermen are settled with for the herring fishing of August at the end of October.

That fishing ends in the middle of September, and they are not settled with before the end of October.

16,774. But is it not the case that, in almost all the cases with which you are acquainted, there is a short season of from five to six weeks, or two to three months, and a settlement takes place at the end of it?-Yes, the final settlement takes place at the end; but at the beginning of the herring fishing the men get an advance. As soon as the fishing is done they get some money to clear off their current expenses, and to pay their hired men; and then about October or November they get a final settlement, when the season's transactions are settled for.

16,775. That is for the herring fishing which commences when?- It commences on 20th July, and that is their great fishing.

16,776. Then there is the Lewis herring fishing, to which a great number of the same men who fish at Wick go?-Yes.

16,777. Is that settled before the herring fishing at Wick begins again?-Yes; it is settled as soon as it is finished.

16,778. Then, if any of these herring fishermen go to the cod and ling fishing in winter, that is settled for the end of that fishing too?-Yes.

16,779. Some of them may perhaps go to the haddock fishing in spring again, and that is settled weekly?-Yes. The haddock fishing is usually settled weekly.

16,780. On the Moray Firth that makes up the whole fishing seasons of the year?-It does.

16,781. And each of these is settled at its close?-Yes.

16,782. So that they will have four settlements in the course of the year?-Yes; four settlements for the various fishings. With regard to the men who go round to the Stornoway fishing, it would scarcely be practicable to settle with them weekly, or before they return home, because of their distance from home and the peculiar nature of the business. The amount actually due to them could not be rightly ascertained until they came home, and all their accounts had been made up and settled.

16,783. Why is that?-Because, from the nature of our business, there are so many places where we give the fishermen the option to run into with their fish, and we would require all the books from these places to be handed over to us and checked, before we could proceed to settle with them.

16,784. Might these fish not be settled for at the station on delivery?-We could settle for them at the station on delivery; but we find so many mistakes occurring afterwards, that unless the books were first checked before the fishermen were paid, we would be apt to lose a good deal.

16,785. How do these mistakes arise?-Because the fishermen may have delivered so many crans of herrings at a different place, where they could not get them entered, and there are so many fishermen of the same name, that one is often confounded with another, unless they are known to the parties, or have 'T' names attached to them, which are a sort of nickname. But the fishermen are quite well pleased when they get their settlement as soon as the fishing is done. It is only along the Fifeshire coast, and about Stonehaven and Aberdeen, that any of the crews during the great summer fishing for herrings are agreed, or deliver their fish by the price of the day, or sell their fish daily.

16,786. Do you know of any other place in the kingdom, except Shetland, where the men have a final settlement only once a year for all the work of the year, whether cod, or ling, or herring, or whatever it may be?-No. The same system does not prevail in any part of the kingdom except Shetland.

16,787. Do you know any other part of the kingdom where the curers universally keep shops to supply their fishermen with meal and soft goods?-No. There may be an instance or two of that kind round the coast, but I may say that I am not aware of any.

16,788. Do you know whether it is a fact that at Wick the men are to a large extent in debt to the curers?-A great many of them are in debt, but there are a great many independent men who are not in debt.

16,789. I understand the men at Wick are divided into two cla.s.ses: free men and unfree men?-Yes.

16,790. The unfree men have to fish to the curers to whom they owe money on general terms?-Yes; on the general terms of debted boats, and they are settled with by the curer at the end of the season. That is somewhat similar to the custom in Shetland.

The fishcurers at the end of the season find the price per cran after they have ascertained the state of the markets, that is, during the month of October, and then pay the unfree men the price, which is usually 1s. per cran less than what is paid to the free boats. That difference is made as a sort of guarantee or security for the risk which they run in advancing boats and nets.

16,791. Is the debt incurred by the fishermen to the curer entirely for boats and nets supplied by the curer?-Yes; and for advances in money.

16,792. Are these advances in money made to a man to enable him to pay his hired men, and so on?-Yes. The fish-curer has a great deal of risk to run in fitting out a debted boat, because he usually becomes security for the hired men's wages; and if he does so he will require to pay them whether they make a good fishing or not.

16,793. What are the wages of the hired men?-They usually range from 6 to 10 along the northern coast.

16,794. What is the cost of a boat at Wick?-A new boat at Wick would cost about 120 or 130.

16,795. Does the curer frequently advance that?-He usually advances one half of it. It is not often that any fish-curer would give a boat to any fisherman who had not any means of his own.

16,796. They expect a fisherman to whom they supply a boat to have some capital equal at least to the cost of one half a boat?- Yes.

16,797. What is the cost of a drift of nets at Wick?-They usually have 40 nets there now, and the cost of a net is about 3, so that a boat and nets would cost about 250 altogether.

16,798. All that expense lies upon the herring fishing alone?- Yes.

16,799. The man, if he is a free man, can use his boat for any of the other fishings except the herring fishing?-Yes. They usually engage also for the Lewis fishing, but not to the same fish-curer.

In that fishing he may engage to anybody he likes; but in the herring fishing he must engage to the man who has advanced him his boat and lines.

16,800. Would you say that two-thirds of the men at Wick are unfree men?-No. I don't think there are above one third of the men at Wick who are indebted men. I know every one of them personally, from settling with them, and I have a good knowledge of their circ.u.mstances.

16,801. Would you be surprised to hear that an extensive curer in Wick estimated the number of free men at nearly one third, and that the unfree men were two thirds?-I would be surprised at that; because I know that of the number of fishermen who own boats not above one third of them are in debt. It may happen that after a bad fishing many of these men may get a little behind, but after a successful fishing there are not more than one third or one fourth of them who are in debt.

16,802. Are you speaking now only of the boat-owners?-Yes.

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16,803. Does a man remain bound to fish on general terms even when his debt is reduced to a low sum, such as 20 or 30?-He is not bound to do it, because he can find another fish-curer who will give him that advance to enable him to pay off his old curer.

16,804. But then he would be unfree and bound to fish to this new creditor?-The other fish-curer usually gives him the current price of free boats, if the man is considered a good man, when the debt comes as low as that.

16,805. Is there any line where you say that a man becomes free?

Do you consider him to be so when his debt is reduced to 50?- When it is under 30, I think the man is considered to be a good man.

16,806. Do you know any district, except in Shetland, where the men are bound to fish for the landlord from whom they hold their ground?-Along certain estates on the Moray coast there are certain villages to which a great many fishermen belong, and I think there is sort of feudal system of the same kind there. There are villages on the estate of Sarklet, near Wick, and at Clyth, and other places, where many of the fishermen have had it in their option to leave the place altogether, and they have usually come down to Wick and been dealt with there as free men. If they fished in the village where they lived before, they had usually to fish to the fish-curer who had obtained the station at groundrent from the proprietor. It was to the advantage of the proprietor to have the fishermen fishing for that curer, so long as they remained on his estate. In these places the price usually ranges 1s. per cran below the town price.