[Page 236]
9730. Does any other person wish to be examined, or to make any statement? [No answer.] Then I adjourn the sittings here until further notice.
*The witness afterwards forwarded a number of these lines. They were in similar terms to the following:-
'CULLIVOE, 8<th Dec>. 1864. '£7, 0s. 7d.
'Mr. HOUSTON,-Please credit A.B. in rent account the sum of seven pounds and sevenpence, and charge to account of ' SANDISON BROTHERS.'
**Mr. Houston afterwards submitted the following remarks by way of supplement to his evidence;-The collecting of rents and <arrears> of long standing, and the dividing and renting of farms, and other unavoidable accompaniments, placed me as a temporary link between landlord and tenant, and tended to give me a knowledge of Shetland affairs in general, as existing between landlord and tenant, between fish-curer and fishermen, and between merchant and customer. Although the dividing and letting of farms may not be considered relevant to the present inquiry into the truck system, I hold a <decidedly opposite opinion>. No doubt poverty is the foundation upon which the truck system has been reared, and may justly be called its <foster> parent; and the origin may be traced, very clearly too, to the subdividing of farms, it being the interest of the landlord-curer to accommodate as many fishermen as possible. In many districts, and on small properties where the landlord is storekeeper and curer, that system is still upheld, and <fostered> with pious care; while on many of the larger properties the proprietors are endeavouring to abolish it. The islands being over-populated, and the farms so insignificantly small, it follows as a result that the inhabitants have to depend on external aid, and throw themselves, although reluctantly it may be, into the arms of a system which, however honestly conducted, has a tendency to hamper their movements, to bereave them of independence, and to plunge parents and their children into debt, out of which they may never be able to extricate themselves. There is an antidote, but its application would require to be a work of <time>.
<Fishcurer and Fishermen>.
In my evidence I stated that at present I considered fishermen were generally well treated, and received as high a price as the curer could well afford; but at same time I <do not> consider the curer is acting judiciously. Under the present arrangement of prices, I can only view the curer and his fishermen in the light of a joint-stock company. The curer supplies boats and lines directly or indirectly. The fishermen give their labour and risk their lives, and when the summer fishing closes, the part the fishermen play in the speculation terminates. The curer prepares the fish for the market, disposes of them, and receives the cash. As the price to be paid to the fishermen is regulated by the market price, I consider it the bounden duty of the curer to lay before the fishermen, at settling, the <missive of sale>, that document being the common property of <both parties>, and more especially as three-fourths at least of the cash realized is understood to belong to the men. <That>, however, <is not the practice>; and hence the fishermen, naturally jealous, and still wincing under the scars of former years, are never satisfied; and I consider the curer in acting thus is reprehensible, and the fishermen justified in complaining, even when the curer is a sufferer. Were it made penal on the part of the curer to treat the bargain so, there would be less injustice done to himself, and less suspicion thrown around his integrity. Since the truck uproar has spread its wings on the Shetland blast, and breathed offensively in the faces even of Her Majesty's Government, it has been suggested by strangers that curers should pay their fishermen each time fish was delivered. That mode would not be advantageous to the fishermen. It would suit their interests better to be paid at the close of the fishing, on the same principle as is done by those engaged in the seal trade. At every station during the summer fishing there is a 'beach price,' and if that price was paid for the summer's catch at the close of the fishing it would put the fishermen in a position of buying with <cash> instead of being dependent on their curer's store for months after the fishing had closed. The residue of the price, which would be a mere trifle, would be paid them when the fish was sold, and the price known, on the same principle as 'oil-money' in the seal trade. I have no doubt whatever but such a mode, if adopted, would tend to put a stop to the present and <necessary> facilities of drawing so largely upon the curer's store. The fisherman who has neither money nor <credit> must go to his curer's store, as he has no other alternative; but were he put in possession of his earnings at the close of the fishing, <truck> for a time would disappear from his individual horizon. I may mention that the hosier referred to in my evidence as having paid £90 in cash in a year to a party in the country for hosiery and yarn was Mr. Robert Linklater, Lerwick; and I may further state that I have known Mr. Robert Sinclair give £15 once on a £20 transaction of hosiery, etc.
BALTASOUND, UNST: FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 1872.
<Present>-MR. GUTHRIE.