12,902. But if the man takes out goods he settles with you?-Yes; or if he draws the money from the foreman, he pays the goods he has got from us with it.
12,903. If he has an account with you, in that case he will settle with you at once?-If he has an account with us he allows his account to go on, and the foreman pays him cash when he wants it When he gets cash from the foreman, it is at his own option to square his account with it or not, as he likes.
12,904. If the man is in your debt, do you still give him the cash?-Yes.
12,905. But you could retain it if there was any doubt about the men's solvency?-We always do hand them the cash.
12,906. You have never had occasion to retain it on account of a man's delay or refusal to pay his debt?-No.
12,907. Do you sometimes get stray lots of fish during the summer?-Not much. Sometimes, perhaps, we get a 'supper piltock.' The men take home a few fish for their own family use, Sometimes a man has large family, and another man has a small family, but they require to take home an equal number of fish to each of them; and then the man who does not require so much sells what he has got extra and that is called a supper piltock.
12,908. I suppose there is not much smuggling of fish going on here?-I don't think so; not in the summer time.
12,909. But if a man who is bound to fish wants a little ready money, does he not come to you with a lot of fish?-Not in the summer time; they would not be safe to do that. They would get their warning if they sold their fish past their proprietor in the summer time.
12,910. If it were known?-Yes, if it were known.
12,911. But don't they try to do it sometimes on the sly?-I don't know that they do.