10,650. Have you any reasons, within your own experience, for maintaining that opinion with regard to Shetland?-I think, from my own experience, that the people would be very much more independent if they had cash in their hands. They are not entrusted with cash just now, as a general rule. I know they get their balances paid; but they are not entrusted with cash, and therefore they are not independent. They are like schoolboys; they lean upon other people, and I don't think that is a good system. When a bad year comes, they expect that the fish-curer has to advance them meal; and they will tell him that if he won't do it, they won't fish for him again. In that way he must do it; in fact they think he is bound to do it. They have no self-reliance or independence.
10,651. Could they get supplies in any other way if the curer did not advance them meal?-There are very few tenants who have not stock of their own-cattle and horses.
10,652. But these are liable to the landlord for their rent?-Yes; and they are liable to be sold for supplies to themselves.
10,653. Do you think that even in a bad year their stock might carry them through?-I think so, in most cases.
10,654. Is there any restriction on the Buness estate upon the opening of new shops?-None whatever.
10,655. Do you think it is possible for a shopkeeper to prosper in Shetland who is not engaged in the fishcuring business?-I think so.
10,656. Even under the present system?-Yes; because there is a good deal of money among the people, irrespective of the fishing. They have their produce, and they are not compelled to go with it all to the fishcurer. There are several shops in this island, the keepers of which, I believe, are doing very well.
10,657. Do you know anything as to the season at which these shops have the largest sale?-I do not.
10,658. Would it be a fair inference, from what you know of the state of things here, to say that the receipts of these shops are much larger in the spring, when the men have got a little cash at settlement, than they are at other periods of the year?-I daresay they are. I cannot speak of that from my own experience; but I believe that these shops advance a number of the fishermen who are fishing, perhaps, to Spence & Co. or others, and take the chance of getting payment when the men receive their money.
10,659. But that is a chance which comes to nothing, or falls altogether, if the men happen to have run up a large account at Spence & Co.'s shop?-Necessarily so.