12,555. Does any arrangement exist between your firm and any other by which you undertake the debts of that firm, and they undertake yours in such cases?-No; we have never taken fishermen into our employment under such circumstances. Then Mr. Hamilton says: 'The employer has unlimited opportunity of appropriating to himself all the result of their labour, leaving to them only so much as is absolutely necessary to prevent them from starving.' That is a state of things which I know nothing about, and I don't believe it exists.
12,556. If a merchant has full power to fix the price of the fish, and if he also fixes the price at which he sells his goods, and the fisherman has no other place where he can get credit for the supplies which are necessary for his existence, is it not conceivable that that state of matters might be abused?-It is conceivable, and there may be a few cases of that kind; but to speak of that as being the rule, is not correct.
12,557. Have you ever heard complaints from the men engaged in the Greenland fishery that they could not get their wages settled for at an earlier period?-I never heard of any difficulty in that way.
12,558. Have you heard them complain that the agent had contrived to keep them in his debt?-I never heard of such a thing. Often when they had money to pay to us, they have said they had not been in for their wages, and that they were going; but they never said there was any difficulty in getting it, if they only went to Lerwick for it.
12,559. Is all the rest of Mr. Hamilton's report correct except those passages you have referred to?-Certainly not. I do not agree with it at all. There is shade of truth about some things stated in it, but it is overstated.
12,560. Do you differ from this statement in it: 'For this purpose they employ agents in Lerwick who get, as I am informed, little direct profit from their agency. Their chief profit arises from what they can make out of the earnings of the men?'-That used to be the case.
12,561. That means, of course, that the agents' chief profit arose from their sales of goods to the men; and that used to be the case formerly?-Yes.
12,562. When did it cease to be the case?-I believe that since the Board of Trade regulations were enforced there has been a change.
12,563. Have you heard of any gentlemen giving up the agency in the Greenland trade in consequence of their failure of profit from that source?-I think Messrs. Hay & Co. have given it up; I have not heard of any others.
12,564. Have you any doubt at all that the principal part of these agents' profits was derived from sales of that kind, at least previous to 1868?-I should think that that is quite correct, if you speak of several years ago.