16,521. Did you refer to one family consisting of a father and several sons?-Yes.
16,522. Did the father resume his old system of fishing Burra?- Yes.
16,523. Why did he return to Burra?-Because the boys got dissatisfied with the system under which they were fishing, and the old man, of course, finding himself without the help of his sons, could do nothing else than take a croft of land, and try to eke out a living in the best way he could.
16,524. Then, although the men cleared off their debt in the way you have described, by drying their own fish and selling them to you in a dried state, the boys became dissatisfied with that system of fishing?-They became dissatisfied with it, because it was not sufficient to keep them.
16,525. Although it cleared off their debt?-No, they had not cleared it off at the time they left. They cleared it off in consequence of going to the Faroe fishing or elsewhere.
16,526. Then the system of fishing that you refer to, and curing their own fish, did not enable them to clear off their debt?-It did not; but they might never have been in debt if they had been more economical.
16,527. But you referred to that change in their mode of fishing, as showing the effect produced by the difference in the green price and the dry price for fish?-Yes; and if they had remained long enough, I have no doubt they might have cleared off their debt as well as others.
16,528. Then you think they did earn more under that system than under the other system?-Yes.
Lerwick, February 6, 1872, WILLIAM ROBERTSON, examined.
16,529. Are you in the employment of Messrs. Hay & Co. in Lerwick?-I am.