1 Wages of four hired men (generally strangers from the Highlands or Islands) and a boy, …… £ 30 0 0 2. Their lodgings, ….. 3 0 0 3. Their allowance of meal, …. 4 0 0 4. Cost of barking nets, …. 3 0 0 5. Cartage and drying-green for nets,. . 3 0 0 6. Harbour dues, ….. 1 0 0 44 0 0
But taking into account that accidentally many nets are lost or
destroyed in each year, and that the fishing is prosecuted in boats,
and with nets more or less worn, and that thus there is need of
considerable annual repair and replacement, it will be seen that in
the ordinary case the expense of a fishing season is largely greater
than in the case of an adventure, with a new boat and drift. Thus
the expense, as above, …..
£ 44 0 0
Replacing 4 nets, ….. 14 0 0
Repairing drift, ….. 2 0 0
Repairing and tarring boat, barking ropes,
sails, etc. , …… 2 0 0
To which falls to be added, to meet
the annual deterioration of the boat 10 0 0
£72 0 0
It follows that the fisherman can have no advantage from the Caithness herring-fishing unless his boat clears a sum of £ 72, or thereabout, in which case the surplus over that amount will constitute his profit.
But if the fisherman has borrowed the money invested in the boat and nets, it is apparent that his annual burden is increased by the sum of interest which he must pay for it. And this leads to reference to a local custom of some importance. If the fisherman has borrowed the money to purchase his boat and nets, or if, as is usually the case, he receives them from a fish-curer to whom he thus becomes debtor for their value, he does so on the condition — very natural in the circumstances — that he shall deliver all his fish to the creditor as long as he remains in debt. In such a case the price of the herrings is not fixed by contract, but is 'the general terms' of price conceded by fish-curers to fishermen in their debt; and these terms are generally about 20 per cent. below the price paid by the curers to men free of debt, and able to bargain beforehand concerning it. This is so while interest is charged on the amount of the debt, or while the fisherman is charged with 'boat's deal' as he usually is, when the debt is not wiped off within the second year.
For the years 1860-70, the average annual take of herrings was only 86 crans. The average price is not stated in any tabular form, but it certainly did not amount to £1 per cran under 'the general terms' system. Thus, assuming that that portion of the herring fleet held by fishermen in debt fished its fair average of these eleven years, it will be seen that the total sum realized but barely sufficed to meet the necessary outlays of the season, and to pay interest on the capital involved
This average, however, represents the mean of success and failure. In every year a few boats fish largely in excess of the average, and a still larger number fall more or less short of it. The latter lose money, if they have money to lose. They who have none fall into debt, or into deeper debt. It is said that fully two-thirds of the fishermen are in debt, and pursue this extensive enterprise burdened with all the disadvantages of debt. Their debts range from all kinds of figures up to £300.
Still there is no such thing as truck; and payment, when payment is owing, is made in cash. In the case of men free of debt, the price, being fixed, is at once paid at the close of the fishing, or soon thereafter. In the case of men in debt, circumstances make the settlement more complicated. At the outset of his career the fisherman is desirous of standing as little as possible in debt to his curer. One or two unsuccessful seasons or seasons of but partial success quickly change his view and he becomes eager to lay as much of the burden of the fishing as possible on the fishcurer. Thus, when he wants nets, he calls on the curer to guarantee payment to the seller of nets. He gets tar, and cutch, and ropes in the same way. The curer guarantees payment of the wages, meal, and other supplies of the crew; and of the cartage of the nets, and the rent of their drying ground. All these are, of course, debited in the fisherman's account. Generally the curer pays off all those claims that require instant settlement at the close of the fishing season. If things have gone fairly well, he may make the man a payment in cash at the same time; but the final settlement of the year is postponed till Martinmas, when, if cash is owing, it is paid. If no balance accrues to the fisherman, his account is handed to him; and if he is a crofter, or a reliable man the curer advances to him £12 or £20, to pay his rent and tide him over the hard times in winter. Sometimes the curer assists his fishermen debtors by supplies of meal for their families in winter, the meal being procured by the curer's orders to millers or meal dealers.
It is tolerably certain that the curer receives an abatement or discount from the merchant's prices of the meal, goods, ropes, nets, or other things which the fishermen procure on his guarantee. But sometimes the guarantee is an open one, with which the fisherman goes to any merchant he chooses making the best bargain he can.
Thus the basis of the system in this, the herring-fishing, is also mainly one of cash payments. On the first relation of it, too, it seems a system conducted in very liberal ways, inasmuch as the fish-curers are prompt to supply the capital, or the boat and materials equivalent to the capital, needed by the fisherman, and to pay him promptly the whole profits. But this, a thing unusual in ordinary commercial dealings, lays the system open to suspicion; and it is, in fact, highly objectionable, and replete with hard and injurious consequences to the fishermen. Take an ordinary case. A fisherman has made a lucky fishing with an old boat, and finds himself at the end of the year clear of debt, or near to that fortunate condition. He has for years used the old boat, as he knows, at a serious disadvantage, for the old boat and defective gearing are insufficient to carry the fisherman twenty or more miles from shore nightly, and at such distances the shoals of herrings often are. His curer will give him a boat one year old, and he takes it, agreeing to pay for it what it originally cost the curer. If the old boat is worth anything, the curer will take it in part payment. But thus the fisherman at once becomes debtor in a £100 or thereby, and bound to fish on 'general terms.' He has probably been so bound all his fishing career. In the same way, a fish-curer will readily trust a boat to a smart young fisherman wishing to start on his own account. Of course, the curer takes care that he has power by writing to seize the boat again, if necessary for his security.
It is commonly calculated that few men fish over 100 crans of herrings oftener than in one season out of five and all the chances are that our fisherman will do little to reduce his debt for some years to come. If the price is not paid by a lucky fishing in the first year, but runs unpaid to a second or third, the curer generally charges the man with deal for the boat, £10 or £14 as may be, and this year after year; so that, when at last the price is paid, and the fisherman gets free, the boat has actually cost him £150 or more. This, however, only occurs with fish-curers who are of a lower class than the most respectable. The leading men in the trade generally credit the sums paid as deal in the final settlement of the boat's price.