12,078. What answers did they give to your offer?-I sometimes offered the currency, or above the currency, but that did not matter: I could not get their fish.
12,079. Did they decline to entertain your offer?-Yes.
12,080. What did they say was their reason?-They considered themselves as a sort of tied down to sell to one; but I know they were not tied down, and that they could have sold their fish to any one they chose.
12,081. But they did say to you that they were tied down?-They did.
12,082. Was it through a fear of disobliging the factor that they refused to sell their fish?-I suppose so. Perhaps they thought that if they required a favour again, they might not get it so easily if they made a change.
12,083. If the favour they expected was in the way of an advance, would they not have got that from you?-Yes, at any time, either in money or in goods.
12,084. What other favour could they expect from the factor?- From the fact of Messrs. Garriock & Co. being factors, they had more power than I had with regard to the men.
12,085. Did the men express any fear of being turned out of their holdings?-They did not.
12,086. But that may have been in their minds?-Perhaps it might.
12,087. Did you ever hear of any influence being used by Garriock & Co. to secure the fish of these men or of other men?-I cannot say that they used any undue influence; but, of course, it was an understood thing that they had the first chance, and the only chance of them. Where Messrs. Garriock cure the fish, of course they have the fish to themselves; but where they do not cure them, it is considered that they shall have the first chance of buying the fish.