1199. Do you mean that the people at the fishing had to do so?- No; the people whom they left at home got so little that they could hardly subsist upon it, and they had to try some other means in order to enable them to live.
1200. What other means had they?-They might have a cow or two, and make butter, and sell the milk, and buy a little meal with that.
1201. Do any of the members of your family knit?-I have two daughters who knit
1202. Do they get money for that knitting?-Not one cent.
1203. Have you sold the hosiery work for them?-I never did. They always manage these matters for themselves.
1204. Have you ever represented their case to the merchants, and said that they ought to pay them in cash?-No. It is no use saying anything of the kind, because the merchants would not give them money. There is one thing I should like to say with regard to the Faroe fishing. We come into the town of Lerwick, or any other port in Shetland where the vessels happen be fitting out, and commence to fit the vessels so as to have them ready for sea. We have to go on board, and have only an allowance of one pound of bread a day for every day we are on board the vessel. We have nothing else to live on during the time we are fitting out the vessels, and if we are absent on any account whatever during the time the vessels are being fitted out they charge 2s., 6d. per day for that, in order to put a man in our place.
1205. Is not that merely a part of your bargain with the merchants for whom you engage to fish?-It is part of the bargain, but it is a very bad part.
1206. If you did not choose to make a bargain of that kind, you would not be bound to carry it out?-That is true; but the poor people here cannot strike as they do in England: because they are so poor, the merchants can just do as they please with them.
1207. Did you sign the obligation eight years ago which has been spoken to by the previous witnesses?-No.
1208. Do you go in for the home fishing at all?-Yes; I am a fisherman in the Burra Isles.