9082. Do you make the allowance according to the proportion you ascertain in each year to exist between your total weight of dry fish and your total weight of green fish?-Yes; there are calculations of that kind made. I don't do it personally, but I believe some of the big curers do it, and then we pay after them.
9083. Do all the large curers agree upon a certain average for each year?-No; they don't make each other acquainted with that. They just pay according to what they sell the fish for, and they give the fishermen the benefit of the rise or fall in the market.
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9084. I am not talking of the average of the current price; I am talking of the average weight of the dry fish as against the green. Does each merchant make his own calculation with regard to that?-I suppose so. I have made calculations in some years, and in others I have not.
9085. How do you take it when you do not make it calculation?-I wait until I see what is current, and then I pay the same.
9086. That is for the money price, but the current price depends on the proportion of dry fish to green?-Yes.
9087. You find out what the large curers have been selling for or have been allowing their men, and you give the same?-Yes.
9088. Are you aware whether all the large curers give the same current price or does it vary with the different houses?-In North Yell, Spence & Co. have some fishermen, and Pole, Hoseason, & Co. have some. We hear what their men are paid, and then our men are paid the same.
9089. Do Pole Hoseason, & Co, and Spence & Co., so far as you know, always pay the same rate?-Yes.
9090. Do you know how their current rate is fixed, or how it is ascertained what the men are to get?-I suppose they just make a calculation in the way I have mentioned.