4002. Is it the case that cash payments at these shops are more frequent about this season of the year, when the men have had their settlements lately over, than they are subsequently?-I think so, because they have money to pay for the articles they buy.
4003. Will the returns made by your shopkeepers of sales at the shops, or the accounts kept with the fishermen, show that?-The shopman's cash-book would show what the daily drawings were.
4004. Do you mean the daily drawings in cash?-Yes, the money.
4005. And you think the daily drawings in cash are probably larger at this season than at other times?-I should think so, because the people have more money in their hands.
4006. Then, if there is any truth in this statement, it must apply, in ordinary seasons, to the period after the fishing has begun?-Yes, it must apply to that; but the statement Mr. Hamilton makes, as to paying seamen's wages, is utterly untrue.
4007. It is true, I suppose, that agents are employed in Lerwick to secure the services of men for ships in the Greenland fishery?- Yes.
4008. Then the portion of that sentence which, I presume, you deny, is that the agents get little direct profit from their agency?- No; they do get little direct profit-only 21/2 per cent. on the wages and oil-money of the men.
4009. These agents are all shopkeepers, and most of them are proprietors of land themselves, or act land agents for others: is that so?-Yes, that is true.
4010. There are only three or four such agents in Lerwick- yourselves, while you continued to act in that way, Mr. Leask, Mr. Tait who has now retired, and Mr Tulloch, of A. Laurenson & Co.?-Yes; Mr Tait has been succeeded, I believe, by Messrs. Leisk and Sandison. There are no others that I know of.
4011. Mr. Hamilton says: 'The owners merely find the money to pay the wages of the men engaged. The agents manage everything else. The agents are, of course, interested in getting employment for those who are in their debt.' Is it the case, as a rule, that the men engaged for these Greenland voyages have been in debt?- No. It has been so difficult for many years now to get the men forward; that we have been very willing to take any man who would come, without regard to what part of the country he belonged to.