Second Shetland Truck System Report

Chapter 383

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16,413. Then is it quite an understood thing that man who engages with an agent for a Greenland voyage must get his supplies from that agent"s shop?-If his goods are as cheap and its good as any other person"s, they commonly take them from his shop; but if not, they usually make a change with the first month"s advance they get, and buy what they want where they can get it cheapest and best.

16,414. Did you ever do that?-Yes.

16,415. Do you always do it?-There are many things which the agents do not keep, and therefore we have to go to different places for what we want.

16,416. Do you get money from the agents for that purpose?- Yes; we get our first month"s advance on signing, and then they will give us supplies in addition for two or three months I suppose, or as much as we have a mind to take.

16,417. Have you ever been spoken to at the Custom House, when you were getting your pay, about going down to the shop and settling your account?-I commonly settle my account before I go up to the Custom House.

16,418. But you don"t pay your money until after you have been at the Custom House?-No.

16,419. Have you ever been spoken to at the Custom House by the agent, or his clerk, about going down to the office and paying the money that was due?-Yes. I was told last year by Mr. Leask"s clerk, Mr. Jamieson, to go down and pay the balance which I was due.

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16,420. Did he tell you that in the Custom House or at the office?-At the office, when we got our account of wages.

16,421. That was before you went up to get your money at all?- Yes.

16,422. He told you then to come back with it?-Yes; and to pay the balance due.

16,423. Is not that always done when you go to settle your account?-No.

16,424. Is it not often done?-No; only that was the time anything of the kind had been said to me.

16,425. Did you ever hear it said to anybody else?-No.

LERWICK: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6,1872.

JOHN HARRISON, examined.

16,426. What are you?-I am a merchant in Lerwick.

16,427. Have you been for a long time a partner of the firm of Harrison & Son?-Yes, since 1856.

16,428. I understand you have had large experience in the management of the Faroe fishing business?-Yes.

16,429. Have you also had some experience with regard to the ling fishing?-Not a great deal; but I have had some.

16,430. Has your firm had any connection with the management of land or property in Shetland?-None whatever.

16,431. Have you neither been tacksmen nor proprietors?-My father is a proprietor to a very small extent.

16,432. But you have not been in any way dependent for your supplies of fishermen upon any interest or connection with land?-In no way whatever.

16,433. Did you find the absence of that connection with land to be any inconvenience to you in the management of your business, with regard to getting fishermen?-None whatever; but men have been hindered from engaging with us, in consequence of being under the power of tacksmen or landlords, who wished to engage them for themselves, although they would have preferred to have gone into our service.

16,434. Has that occurred in many cases?-I cannot state the number of cases, but it has occurred in many, and within recent times.

16,435. Can you give an instance of that without mentioning names?-I could not particularize the instances at the present moment, but if I had time I am prepared to bring forward more than a dozen instances within a period of between two and four years back.

16,437. Are you now speaking with regard to your supply of Faroe fishermen?-Yes.

16,437. Is it not the case, that where tenants are bound fish for their landlord or tacksman, that obligation only applies to the ling fishing if they engage in it but that they and their families are quite free to go to the Faroe fishing or the whale fishing if they please?-Under the system which obtains in Shetland, it makes no difference what fishery a man may go to. He is bound to do what the landlord or the tacksman wishes; if not the result is merely the service of a warning to the parents; and of course, in consequence of the injury which that would do to them, the children, out of their kindness to them, must submit to any rules which may be laid down for their observance.

16,438. The evidence which has been led before me before, of fishermen and of proprietors, has been to this effect, that the obligation upon a man to fish for the proprietor or tacksman extends only to the ling fishing, if he is engaged in it, and that if he chooses to go to the Faroe fishing he is at perfect liberty to do so?-I know of no such obligation.

16,439. Has your experience been different?-Entirely different.

16,440. Does your experience not apply to cases where the tenant may have been in debt?-When the tenant is in debt, it is utterly impossible for him to go and serve another man. But I was referring to the case of parties who were quite free of debt, and who had money in their own possession.

16,441. How many of these cases have come within your knowledge within the last two or three years?-I could not particularize them. There have been several cases which have come under my own notice, or the notice of my firm, although I could not state the number; but from hearsay, and from the talk of men who are serving other owners, I am led to believe that a very great number of these cases has occurred. I do not mean to say that there was actual straightforward force put upon the men; but there were certain innuendoes, by which they knew perfectly well that if they did not do as the tacksman or landlord wished, the result would be that they would be warned out.

16,442. Can you mention the circ.u.mstances of any particular case in which men have been prevented from going to the Faroe fishing in any of your vessels?-I can particularize one instance which came very vividly before me. There were two brothers, who had been with my firm since they were boys. I had rather a respect for them both, because they were honest men and capital fishermen.

One of the boys came to me and said, "I find that I cannot go in the vessel I wished to go in this year, because I am told by the tacksman that my parents will be warned. My brother can go; but if he does, he will have to pay so much for the liberty of going in the vessel that he wishes to go in." I had no reason to doubt the correctness of that statement, because, notwithstanding his evident anxiety to get into the vessel belonging to us, in which he wished to go, and in which he had been serving before, he did not go in her; and it was the evident pressure that had been put upon him which hindered him from going.

16,443. Is that the most striking case of the kind that you have come across in your business experience?-I cannot say that it is the most striking case, but it is the case which appears at the present moment most patent to me, because we were so directly interested in it ourselves.

16,444. How long is it since that happened?-Three or four years ago; I cannot say precisely.

16,445. Is that the only way in which your not having connection with land has interfered with your business; or do you find it a disadvantage with regard to the manning of your own vessels, not to have landed property under your control?-No, I don"t find that to be a disadvantage; I find that we have been the most successful owners of fishing vessels in the Faroe trade of any in the country; and the reason is simply this, that the men who come to us are free men-men who are not bound, neither will be bound, by tacksmen or landlords but men who have been able to earn money by superior energy; but we have had to do a great deal in order to obtain such it cla.s.s of men, and we have had to lose a great deal of money which other people perhaps have put into their pockets.

16,446. Do you mean that you have lost it great deal of money in order to secure this superior cla.s.s of men?- Yes.

16,447. But has not the fact that you have procured them, proved remunerative to you in the end?- [Page 416] Of course it has. It has been a gain to the men, and it has also been it gain to us.

16,448. Do you find that a man who is in debt is its good a fisherman, in your experience, as one who keeps clear of debt?- By no means. My experience has been, on more than fifty different occasions, that although men were due us from 5 to 18 or 20, we would not engage them again if the captains of the vessels said they were not fishermen who were worth being taken, and would rather lose the balances against them in our books than employ them.

16,449. Then you consider it an erroneous statement, that it is advantageous for a merchant in Shetland to obtain a great number of debtors?-I consider it to be the most erroneous statement that ever was made.

16,450. You are aware, I suppose, that that statement was made in the evidence of a witness who was examined in Edinburgh?-Yes, I read something of that kind in the evidence; but I think it was erroneous. I suppose Mr. Walker, when he made it, thoroughly believed that the parties to whom he referred believed that having a number of debtors was the best thing they could possibly have; but my impression is quite different, because the fishermen who are in debt do not have the same energy, nor do they exert themselves so much in procuring fish as other men who are free.

If the fishcurer who had so many debtors had called them in and said to them, "Now men, I will strike off the balances against you, and you will get no more supplies until you bring fish ash.o.r.e," I have not the slightest doubt that at the end of the season the result would have been it great gain to him, and a great gain to the fishermen.

16,451. But you think that other parties in Shetland may have acted upon the principle referred to in Mr. Walker"s evidence, although you do not approve of it?-They may have done so, and I have no doubt they have, because it is a common axiom in Shetland that if once you get a man into debt you have a hold over him. No doubt you have a hold over him, but it is simply a hold over a very unwilling slave.

16,452. However, you have acted upon a different principle?-I have always endeavoured to do so as much as possible.

16,453. And you think you have been justified in doing so by the results?-Decidedly.

16,454. Can you give me any particular instance in which you proved the superiority of men who were free from debt to those who were in debt?-I can give general instances of that. In an island called Hildesha, belonging to my father, the men were accustomed to cast their fish, as it is called, green, and to get payment at so much per cwt. when they were landed green on sh.o.r.e. I found, after three or four years" experience, that at the settlements the men were getting into debt, although they were very good fishermen; indeed there were no better fishermen on the west side of Shetland. When I asked them the reason they said, "Will you give us liberty to cure and dry our fish, and to sell them to you, or to Messrs. Garriock & Co., when they are dry?" I said, "Certainly, if you think that will better your condition. Our house is an exporter of fish to Spain, its well as Garriock & Co., and I expect that you will not give them the fish at the same price which we will give you for them, but that you will rather give us the preference, seeing you are tenants of my father." The men said that of course I should get the fish immediately they were dried, and they thought that would be an advantage to them. The result of that was, that the men reaped a great benefit; and although some of them afterwards, left the island in debt to the extent of 50, the best of them are now free men, and have money of their own in bank.

16,455. Is it long ago since that happened?-It is more than four or five years since they left the island.

16,456. How long is it since they paid off their debts?-I think not more than three years ago, some of them.

16,457. Was that not binding the tenants to deliver their fish to you in the same way as proprietors do, whose method you disapprove of?-Certainly not. I stated distinctly that if they offered their fish to Garriock & Co., and could get more money from them, then they were at liberty to sell to them. There was no stipulation whatever to the effect that these men were to deliver their fish to us.

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