Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 50

1199. Do you mean that the people at the fishing had to do so?- No; the people whom they left at home got so little that they could hardly subsist upon it, and they had to try some other means in order to enable them to live.

1200. What other means had they?-They might have a cow or two, and make b.u.t.ter, and sell the milk, and buy a little meal with that.

1201. Do any of the members of your family knit?-I have two daughters who knit

1202. Do they get money for that knitting?-Not one cent.

1203. Have you sold the hosiery work for them?-I never did.

They always manage these matters for themselves.

1204. Have you ever represented their case to the merchants, and said that they ought to pay them in cash?-No. It is no use saying anything of the kind, because the merchants would not give them money. There is one thing I should like to say with regard to the Faroe fishing. We come into the town of Lerwick, or any other port in Shetland where the vessels happen be fitting out, and commence to fit the vessels so as to have them ready for sea. We have to go on board, and have only an allowance of one pound of bread a day for every day we are on board the vessel. We have nothing else to live on during the time we are fitting out the vessels, and if we are absent on any account whatever during the time the vessels are being fitted out they charge 2s., 6d. per day for that, in order to put a man in our place.

1205. Is not that merely a part of your bargain with the merchants for whom you engage to fish?-It is part of the bargain, but it is a very bad part.

1206. If you did not choose to make a bargain of that kind, you would not be bound to carry it out?-That is true; but the poor people here cannot strike as they do in England: because they are so poor, the merchants can just do as they please with them.

1207. Did you sign the obligation eight years ago which has been spoken to by the previous witnesses?-No.

1208. Do you go in for the home fishing at all?-Yes; I am a fisherman in the Burra Isles.

1209. Do you consider yourself bound to fish only for Messrs. Hay in the home fishing?-I do.

1210. Have you ever been told so by Messrs. Hay?-Yes, I have been told that; and there was a doc.u.ment made out, but I did not sign it. I have got no notice about the matter since then, because we knew that we had to carry on the fishing in the same way.

1211. Have you ever paid liberty money?-No, I never had anybody to pay it for, and I never paid for myself.

1212. Have you ever asked to have the price of your fish fixed at the beginning of the season?-No.

1213. Is there not a feeling among the men, that that would be a better mode of dealing than the present?-We durst not go in for anything of the kind.

1214. Would it not be a better plan in the Faroe fishing?-We could not do anything of the kind there, because the merchants don't know what the price of the fish will be until they can be sold.

The market may rise.

1215. You take your chance of the markets there-Yes; whatever chance the merchant gets, we get too. We run shares with the merchants in that fishing.

1216. You are not paid at so much per cwt.?-No; we have shares.

One half of the fish that are brought in by the vessel belongs to the crew, and the other half belongs to the owners.

1217. Then you are not serving for wages there at all?-No; they give us wages if we have to go to Iceland in the fall of the year but they give no wages for the summer fishing at Faroe. It is just a partnership that is made up for the fish that are caught.

1218. Is there anything further you wish to say?-No; I think everything which we have to say has been pretty well said by the other men.

1219. Are all the thirteen men here who signed the letter to me about Burra?-Yes.

1220. Have any of them anything further to say?-[No answer.]

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Lerwick: Wednesday, January 3, 1872.

-Mr Guthrie.

JOHN LEASK, examined.

1221. You are a fisherman at Channerwick, parish of Sandwick?- I am.

1222. You came here yesterday for the purpose making some statement: what was it about?-I wanted to make some statement about how I have been treated three years back, particularly.

1223. Are you a tenant of land?-Yes.

1224. Are you a yearly tenant?-Yes.

1225. Under whom?-Under Mr. Robert Bruce of Simbister.

1226. Do you pay your rent to him?-We pay our rent to Mr.

William Irvine, the factor.

1227. Is that Mr. Irvine of Hay & Co.?-Yes.

1228. What quant.i.ty of land do you hold?-It is rather more than what are called two merks and about a third.

1229. How much is that in acres?-I don't know. It is a Danish measurement.

1230. How much rent do you pay for that?-4, 2s. 10d.

1231. Do you also pay taxes and poor-rates in addition?-No; that is included in the sum I have mentioned.

1232. What did you come to complain about?-About the way we were dealt with when we were under tack for seventeen years to Mr. Robert Mouat. He got bankrupt in the latter end.

1233. How long is it since he became bankrupt?-It was only last year, and he went away then.

1234. Before that, had he a tack of the whole lands of Mr. Bruce in that part of the country?-He had Levenwick, Channerwick and Coningsburgh in tack.

1235. Had you to pay your rent to him?-Yes.

1236. He was what is called a middle-man in Shetland?-Yes; a middle-man or tacksmaster. The Shetland name for it is tacksmaster.

1237. You were under tack to him, and you paid the same rent to him that you have mentioned just now?-Yes, I suppose so, but I don't remember what rent I paid to him, for I never got my rent from him.

1238. How do you mean?-Because he was the tacksman, and he took what rent he liked.

1239. Do you mean to say that you did not pay 4, 2s. 10d. to him the same as you are doing now?-I paid him more.

1240. When was your rent fixed at 4, 2s. 10d.?-This year.

1241. What was your rent before?-I cannot tell what it was under Mouat, for I never heard what it was. He never told me what my rent was; it was just what he liked to take. But after Mouat left, Mr. Bruce gave us our liberty. We have had our liberty for the past year, and we go now and pay our rent to the factor, and he has told us what our rent is.