16,721. Could you not fix that stated price at the beginning of the season?-Not if we were to pay by the price of the day. If the system pursued in Fife could be got to work in these northern and western places, it would be a decided advantage to the fishermen themselves if they agreed to it.
16,722. Have you tried them?-I have often spoken to the fishermen about that. I have been round there agreeing and settling with the boats, and I have often mentioned the subject, but they have always said that such a thing would not work there at all.
16,723. Do you know the system of settlement in Shetland with the cod and ling fishermen?-Not from my own knowledge.
16,724. The men there are engaged early in the spring, or even as early as Martinmas, to fish for the following season. Some of them are bound to do so without any agreement; but the understanding is, that they are to get the current price at the end of the season,-the season being from May until about 12th August for the cod and ling fishing,-and the settlement does not take place until November or December, and even later?-The reason for that is, that in Shetland after the fishing is over it takes two or three months until the fish are cured, so that they cannot state a price to the men in Shetland until after the curing has been completed.
16,725. Are not the sales made in September or October?-Yes; and they then arrange what the price is to be.
16,726. But you say that the delay in settling there for the cod and ling fishing arises from the way in which the current price is fixed at the end of the season?-Yes; it is merely because the fish cannot be cured within a month or so.
16,727. And you cannot sell them and ascertain the price until they are cured?-That is the usual way in which they do. They ascertain the price at the end of the season when the fish are cured, and they settle with the fishermen accordingly.
16,728. From your experience of fishermen in different parts of Scotland, do you think they are likely to be more prosperous when they are paid by the price of the day than when they are paid upon long settlements?-I think it would be a great advantage to themselves, and also to the fish-curer, if they were to be paid by the price of the day.
16,729. Why would it be an advantage to the fishermen?- Because they would get simply what is due to them, and the fish-curer would not run any risk from the men getting into debt. Along the Fifeshire coast the fishermen are not in debt to the fish-curers, simply because they get a price per cran per day, and don't require any advances. In the northern districts, on the contrary, owing to the number of fishermen always getting new boats and materials, they require advances to fit them out; and the system of paying by the price of the day not being in force there, they generally get heavily into debt, and many of them never come out of it.
16,730. Is it the case that on the coast of Fife, and in the eastern district of Banff, the fishermen are not in debt to the curers at all?-Yes; they are usually a better class of fishermen altogether on the Fife and Buckie coasts.