14,379. You are a merchant and shipping agent in Lerwick?-I am.
14,380. You have been engaged as an agent for Greenland [Page 360]whaling vessels for some time?-Yes, on my own account, or as a partner of the firm of Laurenson & Co., for five years.
14,381. Before that, you were in the employment of Mr. Leask?- Yes.
14,382. I understand you desire to make some statement with regard to the evidence which has already been led upon this subject?-Yes. I heard a part of the evidence of Mr. Wm. Robertson; and some parts of what I heard I could not agree with. In the first place, with reference to the handing of lists of balances at the end of the year by one agent to another, he said that practice had been discontinued for a number of years. So far as I know, that is not the case.
14,383. Does that practice still exist?-I know nothing to the contrary.
14,384. To what do you refer?-To the balances that may be due by men to the agents.
14,385. Have you in your business had such lists handed to you, or have you handed them to other agents in the trade?-Yes.
14,386. Is that still done?-It has been done within the last five years. It was the only legitimate way of keeping before you the men who were in debt. When they went from one agent to another, that was the only way in which we could know where they were, or whether they were still continuing to go in the trade; but, of course, when any balance was recovered, it was always with the entire concurrence of the indebted person.
14,387. Do you mean that when any balance was paid by an agent on his behalf it was with his concurrence?-It was always understood to be with his entire concurrence.
14,388. I suppose the practice you refer to came to this, that an agent to whom a man was in debt was able to recover from the agent who engaged him for the subsequent year in the Greenland voyage the amount of his debt or a part of it?-Yes, that was the object of it.