Hillswick, Northmavine, January 12, 1872, Rev. JAMES R.
SUTHERLAND, examined.
7468. You are the minister of the parish of Northmaven?-I am.
7469. How long have you been so?-Since November 1848.
7470. You are, I presume, intimately acquainted with the condition of the people in your parish?-Perfectly so-as much as any minister can be.
7471. And you know the system which prevails, and which has been described in the evidence yesterday and to-day, with regard to the payment for fish in account with the fish-curer, and also with regard to hosiery?-Yes; I am acquainted with that generally.
7472. You have not been cited to attend here to-day?-No.
7473. But I understand you are willing and desirous to make some statement with regard to the effects of that system upon the habits of the people?-I am perfectly willing.
7474. Do you think the system of long payments which exists here is a wholesome one as regards the habits of the fishermen?-I think it is most ruinous. I think I have had very good opportunities of judging of the effect of the system upon the people, being intimately acquainted with them, and having received the statements in private of a great many of them; and I cannot conceive any system which could be more ruinous in a moral point of view, apart altogether from its effect upon them in a pecuniary way. In my opinion, the independence of the people is wholly destroyed. There is scarcely a man I know, with very few exceptions, who is not in terror, and terror that I could scarcely describe, of the merchant to whom he is indebted, and I believe that three-fourths of the whole of my parishioners are in debt to some merchant or other, and thoroughly under their control.
7475. What is your ground for saying that so many your own parishioners are in debt?-I know it from their own lips.
7476. Do you speak of the present time?-Yes, of the present time. There are a few exceptions to that, some of which I could point out, but not many.