15,215. Do you receive a commission upon the advances made by the merchants?-Occasionally.
15,216. Do you not always do so?-No. Some of them don't agree to give it; there is no arrangement about that.
15,217. Do those who give it get a reference?-They do not. The men have very often to go to them.
15,218. But you give them the option only to go to certain parties whom you name?-Yes. If they begin to deal with one party, they must deal with the same party during the season, because of the difficulty of keeping accounts with the various parties in the town.
15,219. You name a certain number of merchants with whom they must deal?-Yes; and they are generally the most respectable people in Lerwick, where they can get their supplies most moderately. But the men were naming any one themselves with whom they wished to deal, they would have the same option to deal with him, only they must deal with the same individual for the season.
15,220. Would you give a similar guarantee to a merchant whom the men named themselves?-Yes.
15,221. Do you do that in order that the families of the men may be able to live during the fishing season-Yes.
15,222. But it is only in the event of a man requiring these advances that you give such a guarantee, or require them to go to such a shop?-They all require it.
15,223. Are none of them able to live upon their own resources?- Plenty of them; but still they come for their supplies. There was an instance of that occurred with me only eight days past on Saturday. A man who had been in my employment for two or three years had been engaged two or three weeks before to go to the fishing for the rising season, and he came on Saturday and asked for supplies. I asked him where he wished them from, and he said Hay & Co.'s, and I gave him an order to go there. After giving it to him, he came and asked me for some cash. I told him thought it was rather early to come and ask for cash for the rising season, and that he could hardly have spent the money he had got from me at settlement. After a good deal of pressure, he said that about the time he had settled with me he had got some money from his son, and he had added it to the money he had from me, and had put it into the bank, and he did not like to draw it out again. Therefore it is not altogether from necessity that they get these supplies.
15,224. But they all take them as a matter of course?-Yes. There are some men who always get them, and the other men would think they were not so well treated if they did not get them also.