GENERAL INQUIRIES AS TO FISHERIES IN OTHER PLACES

I have thus endeavoured to state some of the general considerations on both sides of the question as to the possibility and expediency of introducing, by direct or indirect legislative action, a system of cash payments into the Shetland fisheries. In such an investigation it is natural to ask how fishing undertakings are conducted elsewhere, and whether indebtedness and truck are necessary elements in the condition of all fishermen. In the hope of obtaining an answer to this question, which might either suggest a remedy for the case of Shetland, or might show how far local and exceptional legislation is admissible, I made some very general inquiry as to the state of fishermen elsewhere in regard to the mode of paying their earnings. For this purpose some personal and informal inquiries were made in Orkney and Wick; and at Edinburgh two of the employees of Mr. Methuen, the most extensive fish-curer in Scotland, who has stations on almost all parts of the coast, were examined. The prima facie conclusion derived from such inquiries is, that where fishermen are not within easy reach of a fresh market, they are apt to be largely in debt to the fish-curers. In Orkney, the social state of which formerly closely resembled Shetland as it now is, a great change has been effected by the improvement of agriculture. The tenants have to a large extent abandoned fishing, finding sufficient employment and adequate support in cultivating their farms. In Orkney the fish-curers have in general no shops. I was not able to ascertain whether there is any practice of guarantees, such as is said to exist at Wick and Stornoway.

[G.S. Sutherland, 16,661 sqq.; D. Davidson, 16,920 sqq.]

COMBINATION OF FISHING AND FARMING

Orkney is referred to as showing the beneficial effect of separating the occupation of fishing from that of farming. It is not, however, certain that the immediate separation of fishing and farming in Shetland is either possible or desirable. It is held by some of the chief opponents of truck in Shetland that the land will be most profitably managed under a system of sheep farming, and that the fisheries also will be most productive if the fishermen are not dependent for a material part of their subsistence upon their crofts, but are stimulated by necessity to go to sea during the greater part of the year. The 'improvements' which have been begun with the view of effecting this separation on the Garth and Annsbrae estates, have given rise to much of the indignation which the introduction the of sheep farming and depopulation has been wont to excite in similar cases. Nothing but actual experiment, however, will prove whether cod and ling fishery can be prosecuted successfully from the coasts of Shetland in winter. The fishermen here do not, like those of Wick, described in the paper of Mr. M'Lennan, fish all the year round in modes adapted to the varying seasons. Almost their only profitable fishing is in the summer months; and it seems to be certain that the haaf fishing could not be successfully prosecuted in winter with the present open boats. These, buoyant and wonderfully safe and handy as they are, afford no shelter, and cannot in stormy winter weather keep the sea for any length of time. When a storm comes on the Shetland fisherman makes for land, although it is in approaching it that he meets with the dangerous tideways in which the shipwrecks of his comrades have usually taken place. In winter and spring these storms are so frequent and so sudden, that it is impossible for open boats to pursue the haaf fishing successfully. It is disputed whether larger vessels, such as the smacks employed in the Faroe fishing, or those of the Grimsby and Yarmouth men, could carry on the long-line fishing in the deep water and rocky bottom of the Shetland haul, and the best authorities say that they could not, because on that fishing ground the lines cannot be taken in by the boats while sailing. It does not, however, appear whether recent attempts have been made on a sufficiently large scale to justify a decision in the negative; and it is satisfactory to know that a company has been formed for the express purpose of extending the season of the ling fishing, and carrying it on without the ordinary connection with a shop.

[Appx. p. 61; C. Williamson, 10,841; L.F.U. Garriock, 12,478, etc.; C. Williamson, 10,839, 10,794; J. Walker, 15,941, 15,952.]

INQUIRIES AT WICK

At Wick many of the resident fishermen are nothing but fishermen; but some who fish from Wick in summer have small farms along the coast, and many of the hired men who are required for the herring fishing come from Highland districts, where they combine agricultural and seafaring occupations during the rest of the year. The paper by Mr. M'Lennan of Wick affords interesting information with regard to the Wick fisheries. It shows, by the experience of the haddock fishing and the winter cod fishing, that payment to crews fishing on shares, or 'on deal' as it is there called, may easily be made each Saturday night; by that of the winter herring fishing that payment may be made at landing the fish, and by that of the Lewis herring fishery, how a settlement in a very extensive fishing with complicated arrangements is made immediately at the close of the fishing season.

[Mr M'Lennan, Appendix II; D. Davidson, G.S. Sutherland, 16,806, 16,750.]

At Wick the herring fishing alone is directly affected by the indebtedness of the fishermen, and in it alone is the settlement delayed for two months after the close of the season. The amount of indebtedness existing among the fishermen, and its effects upon the bargains which they make, is remarkable. In Shetland, as has been seen, one-third, and in some districts a much less proportion, of the fishermen is indebted to the curers. There, £20 or £30 is a very large debt for a fisherman to owe, and such debts make no disadvantageous distinction between the debtors and other fishermen in regard to the price paid for the fish. At Wick, on the contrary, the expense of boats and nets is so great, that debts of £200 and upwards are not uncommon; and all who owe above a certain amount are obliged to fish for 20 per cent., or according to another witness 1s. per cran, less than free men get. These statements agree with the information I received personally from a large fish-curer at Wick. Mr. M'Lennan says that 'there is no such thing as truck; and payment, when payment is owing, is made in cash.' But it appears both from his paper and from the evidence of Mr. Sutherland, that at Wick, and in the Hebrides and West Highlands, the men cannot prosecute the fishing without supplies being advanced to them. Except, however, as regards boats and fishing materials, these advances are not made directly by the curers, who do not keep provision shops but by the local shopkeepers upon 'lines' or guarantees by the curers. 'It is tolerable certain,' says Mr. M'Lennan, 'that the curer receives an abatement or discount from the merchants' prices of meal, goods, ropes, nets, or other things which the fishermen procure on his guarantee.' Nothing, indeed, can be more probable; but no inquiry being made into transactions between curers and fishermen out of Shetland, except for the purposes of suggestion and comparison, I am not able to say whether such a system of disguised truck does in fact prevail.