16,588. Do the men know that he expects that?-I daresay they do.
16,589. Was not that the principal consideration in inducing the agents to undertake to carry on the agency?-I cannot say what it was in former times, because there was an agency in the house before my time, and I came into it after it was established.
16,590. But is it not the case that you are giving up the business because the 21/2 per cent. commission is an insufficient remuneration for your trouble?-Yes, it is insufficient for the trouble we have; and I daresay if it had not been for the circumstance that the present masters are sons and. grandsons to masters who had been coming to the house long ago, we would have given it up sooner.
16,591. Have accounts for outfit and supplies for men employed in the Greenland fishing become less in recent years than they were ten or a dozen years ago?-I daresay in some cases they have.
16,592. Is it not the case that they have done so upon the whole?- Yes, because there are not so many green hands taken now as there were then.
16,593. You have found it necessary to restrict your credits to them?-On the short voyages we have. A voyage of two months is not like one of five or six months.
16,594. You have therefore lost part of the profit which formerly accrued upon these agencies?-Of course if the outfits are less, the profits must be less.
16,595. Is that the reason why you have found it necessary to give up the business?-That is not the reason. It is because of the trouble we had with them. I believe we have perhaps sold as much to the men this year as we did when we had the agency.
16,596. Even when you had a great number of green hands?- There are not many green hands going now, because the outfits cannot be given to them. That has been the experience of the last few years.
16,597. But, apart from green hands, is not the amount of out-takes by these men less than it was ten or fifteen years ago?-With some men it is as much, and with others far less.