'PETERHEAD, 16<th March> 1871. 'R. KIDD <to> HAY & CO. 'I enclose you letter I have received from H.M. Customs as regards the engaging and paying of the men engaged in the Greenland fishing ships. You will know how to act in regard to this. You have likely received direct orders, and I only enclose it to keep you in mind of it.' The document to which Mr. Kidd's letter refers is given below.*
* 'TRUCK SYSTEM IN LERWICK. 'It appears from the returns and documents received by the Registrar-General of Seamen, that the indulgence granted by the Board of Trade under their special regulations, M. 2884/1864, to the owners and masters of sealing and whaling vessels, in respect to seamen engaged at Orkney and Shetland, has in a great measure been abused, and the whole object of the regulations defeated by the agents employed by and representing the owners at Lerwick. The Board of Trade are informed that many of the Shetland seamen who should have been discharged before the Superintendent there, within a reasonable time after their being landed on the termination of a first or second voyage, remain undischarged and unpaid even into the currency of the succeeding year, and that some of the releases for 1870 still remain incomplete.
'It should be borne in mind that the exceptional regulations referred to were issued by the Board of Trade, with a view to the convenience of the owners and masters of this class of vessels, and the protection of the Shetland seamen; but as the latter intention seems to have been purposely frustrated, the Board of Trade direct you to inform the owners and masters of those vessels whose crews are engaged before you during the ensuing season, that unless they cause their agents to comply with the spirit as well as the letter of these regulations, and discharge the men within one month of their being landed, the Board will be necessitated either to render the regulations more stringent, or withdraw them altogether. If the latter alternative were adopted, the discharge of the Orkney and Shetland whaling crews would have to take place under the more rigid terms prescribed by the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, which of all other vessels at ports in the United Kingdom.'
'CUSTOM HOUSE, PETERHEAD, '10<th March> 1871
'SIR,-The foregoing is a copy of directions just received from the Board of Trade, dated 7th March, regarding the faulty way in which seamen are discharged from Peterhead whaling vessels at Lerwick; and I now beg to call your attention thereto, requesting that you would instruct your agent at Lerwick to attend to the previous instructions issued, which were circulated among the masters and agents when they were issued. 'W.R. BALFOUR. 'Mr. R. KIDD, Merchant.'
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'LERWICK, 27<th March> 1871.
'HAY & CO. <to> R. KIDD.
'We are duly favoured with your's of 16th instant, enclosing a communication from the Board of Trade in reference to payment of wages to Shetlandmen on board of ships in the Greenland trade, and headed by the words, 'Truck in Lerwick,'-a cry raised by a stranger who has taken up his residence in Shetland, and is now endeavouring, by every means in his power, to make himself prominent both here and elsewhere.
'We utterly deny that we have ever 'purposely frustrated' the Board regulations in respect to the payment of these men; on the contrary, we have kept a clerk, whose time has been chiefly occupied in settling the wages in presence of the collector as they came to town one by one, according to their own convenience; and you know how far the commission we get from the ships can go towards his salary. Nobody can compel the men to come to town all at one time for their wages; and if the releases of 1870 are not yet completed, it is not our fault.
'Without attaching any blame to you, we consider the document referred to-if it is meant to apply to us-a gratuitous insult. The Greenland agency is no great object, and after this season we shall not put ourselves in a position to have it repeated.'