14,292. Was the rest of your evidence correct?-Yes.
[Page 357]
Lerwick, January 29, 1872, ANDREW B. JAMIESON, recalled.
14,293. Do you wish to make any addition to your former evidence?-Yes. I wish to say with regard to the Accountant to the Board of Trade's report, that I consider it unjust to the agents concerned in the Greenland trade, and I concur generally in all that was said by Mr. William Robertson on that point.
14,294. Is there any particular fact in that report, apart from matters of opinion, which you think is incorrectly stated?- The report commences: 'In accordance with my instructions, I paid special attention to the circumstances attending the official discharge of Shetland seamen after voyages made in whaling vessels, great difficulty and delay having been experienced by the Board of Trade in getting the releases for such voyages completed within anything like a reasonable time.' I do not consider that to be correct. The Board of Trade never fixed a time for the releases to be completed, and consequently the men do not come for their settlement until it suits their own convenience.
14,295. Do you mean that before 1868 no rule existed on that subject?-There is no time fixed even now for the men to come.
14,296. Does not the third head of the regulations provide that, when the men are landed, the master shall deliver the store-book, and that the balances due shall be paid in presence of the superintendent?-The master does deliver the store-book when the crew are landed, but the regulation does not say that the men are to appear immediately before the superintendent. If they would remain in town, that would be done; but they prefer going home, especially when they are not required by the regulations to remain.
14,297. The Merchant Shipping Act provides that the master or owner shall pay the wages of every seaman within three days after the cargo has been delivered, or within five days after the seaman's discharge, whichever first happens?-These are the terms of the Act; but that never was the rule in the Greenland trade, because the men are landed in any part of Shetland the ship first comes to, and the men never come forward to Lerwick to be settled with until it suits them to come.
14,298. I don't know that Mr. Hamilton lays the blame upon the agents for the delay in getting the releases completed?-Not in that sentence, but he does so subsequently in his report. He says, 'When the whalers return after a short and successful voyage, it is, under this system, manifestly to the agent's interest that the Shetland portion of the crews should not be settled with at once.'
14,299. Do you say that that is not for the agent's interest?-I say that it is not. It is not for his interest to delay the settlement, and the settlement is not delayed by him.