15,100. Do you sometimes exact liberty money?-I have exacted liberty money two or three times from landholders. I don't take it from young men-only from landholders. Three guineas is what I fixed it at, but I asked a pound only for the last man who fished off the property. His name was James Shewan; and I told him this year that he could fish for nothing, because I wanted his land to put a few sheep on. He is going to fish for nothing this year, and he is to leave at Martinmas.
15,101. That is to say, he is to fish to any party for nothing?-He can fish to any person he likes. I believe in the evidence which has been given, mention was made of a lad Thomas Johnston not getting liberty to go home to his father's house because he was fishing for another curer. The understanding I have with the tenants is, that I expect them all, both young men and old, to fish for me, on condition that I pay them as well as any other person; and I want to put as much pressure as I consider reasonable upon them for that purpose. But young men are not to be bound always to fish at the home fishing, and sometimes there may not be a way suitable for them; and I have told them all in such a case that they could go to Faroe or to Greenland, or go out of the parish into the next parish, and prosecute the fishing there. This lad Johnston, who was the son of a man considerably indebted to me, went down to the other side and fished to Messrs. Hay & Co., and I daresay I did come pretty hard down upon the father for allowing his son to go away. The result was, that the lad spent his winter about a mile and a half or two miles from his father's house in service there, but he has been back since then. On other occasions two or three young men have left the parish when they could not get a convenient boat in it, and gone to Dunrossness to the fishing, and I have never said anything to them about it. There is one lad who is to fish for Mr. Bruce in a boat's crew of his in the incoming season, and I have made no objection to it.
15,102. There was another case mentioned in the previous evidence also-that of a man named Williamson, at Berlin. It was said his son was engaged to a neighbouring crofter as a servant, and that he had been obliged to leave that and come to your employment as beach boy for a lower wage?-I cannot tell anything [Page 382] about that; but, as a rule, I expect the boys to serve me at the beach on the usual terms. I always make a point of informing them in plenty of time, perhaps about August, that I will require so and so the following year, so that they may not make any other engagement. If such a thing took place with Williamson's son, I never heard of it. I had a boy named Williamson in my employment at the beach last season, and I suppose he was a son of old James Williamson's, but I knew nothing about him having been previously engaged to another service. With regard to liberty money, I may say that in 1867 Charles Eunson paid me over £3 or three guineas; and John Flawes. I think they fished to me in the following year.
15,103. One complaint made by the men with regard to the price paid to them for their fish, was that some neighbouring curers at Sandwick, Thomas Tulloch and James Smith, paid 9d. per cwt. more for ling, and also an additional price for other fish above what is called the current price: can you explain how that arises?- I can explain how the current price, according to which we pay, is fixed, but I don't understand how Tulloch and Smith can pay the price they do. If you can investigate that and let us see it in the blue-book, we will perhaps get a wrinkle out of it; but we cannot understand it in the meantime. What I promise to my fishermen, and what I promise any stray boats that come to me-and I have three or four boats fishing to me just now from Simbister property-is, that whatever Messrs. Hay & Co., Mr. John Bruce, Mr. John Robertson, and Mr. Mullay pay, will be paid by me also. Mr. Tulloch and Mr. Smith are no guide to me with regard to the price which I am to pay; and I tell the men they must go to them if they want their price.
15,104. Can you account for their higher prices by the fact that they sell, not to wholesale dealers as the larger merchants do, but to retail purchasers, and thus get both the retail and the wholesale profit?-That may account for it. I know that Tulloch's boat is coming up to Lerwick every week during the summer with casks of fish for retail dealers. Of course, when I am shipping 100 tons, I must allow a middle-man to take them, and he must have his profit; but I have nothing to do with how Tulloch manages his business.
15,105. Do communications pass between you and the other fish-curers as to the price of fish before you settle with your fishermen?-The fact is, that I have always found it the most difficult thing possible to make out what price they were going to pay. One curer may get a sort of a pull over another if he pays 6d. or so above the market price but that leads to very disagreeable feelings. I have asked Hay & Co. repeatedly what price they were to pay, and they have given me no answer; and I have actually found the current price by taking care to be about the last who sold, and seeing what my neighbours had got before me. At the present time I have squared up my books at a certain price; but Mr John Bruce has not settled yet, and if he pays 2d. or 3d. above me I shall have to turn my books over again and pay that additional. I have always been the second last in settling, just in order that I might see what my neighbours were to pay. One year I settled before Hay & Co.'s people, and they paid 2d. a gallon on the livers above me. I paid that up on the next year's livers, and lost a £10 note on the transaction.
15,106. Do you find the fishermen a difficult people to deal with?-Exceedingly.
15,107. Do they make many inquiries as to the prices at which you have sold the fish, or ask to see your accounts?-No. They begin to understand about the end of the season what the price is to be which they are to get. As a general rule we tell them that they will get what other people are getting, and they will hear in time enough; but they never think of asking what I am getting for the fish myself. The Faroe fishers are the only people who would be disposed to be troublesome in that way, because they are entitled to one half of the proceeds of the fishing.
15,108. Have you anything to do with the Faroe fishing?-I have one vessel there; but I don't supply the men with goods. Messrs. Hay or Mr. Leask have been the agents for that; and I merely interpone my security, and pay cash for the goods, without a penny of profit upon them.
15,109. Do you give security to Messrs. Hay or Mr. Leask for the advances which they make to your fishermen?-Yes; they are debited to me.