Part 20 (2/2)

At Wick the herring fis.h.i.+ng 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 fis.h.i.+ng without supplies being advanced to them. Except, however, as regards boats and fis.h.i.+ng 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.

[G.S. Sutherland, 16,805.]

It seems to be fairly deducible from this evidence, that cash payments for fish are not impracticable and inexpedient, as some witnesses have said. The condition of fishermen in Wick and the West Highlands shows further that Shetland is not, as has sometimes been thought, a peculiar and exceptional country.

Elsewhere also fishermen have crofts, are poor, and in debt; require advances for boats, fis.h.i.+ng implements, and provisions; and obtain them from or through the curers to whom they sell their fish. The evidence given before the Select Committee on the Irish Sea Fisheries Bill of 1867 shows that the condition of many fishermen on the Irish coast is worse in regard to indebtedness than that of any in Shetland.

The question may then be asked, whether a partial and local remedy should be applied to Shetland, while nothing is done for the fishermen of other districts; and whether it is expedient to pa.s.s an Act of Parliament for the protection of a particular trade in a single county, unless it be fully ascertained that its circ.u.mstances are materially different from those of the same trade in the rest of the empire. It is for Her Majesty's Government to decide whether it can introduce a measure for the repression of truck, and the regulation of agreements between fishermen and their employers, without having information as to the nature of the present relations between these parties throughout the empire.

There is a good deal to lead to the conclusion, if any general conclusion may be formed from a local and partial investigation, that fishermen and fish-curers may fairly be subjected to regulations a.n.a.logous to those which the Merchant s.h.i.+pping Act lays down for the engagement of seamen. It is also a point worthy of consideration, whether the prohibition of set-off should not be extended to all dealings between fishermen and fish-merchants, with this exception, that the curer or merchant should be at liberty to retain one third of each week's or month's earnings for payment of any boats or lines supplied to the fishermen by him or on his guarantee. The carelessness or incompetence of fishermen in regard to pa.s.s-books and accounts, suggests also the propriety of a limitation of action upon such accounts to three months, with a provision that no acknowledgments shall bar prescription unless holograph, or signed before witnesses.

LAND QUESTION.

I have not thought myself at liberty to enter upon the land question in Shetland as substantive part of the inquiry; but it is plain that the prevalence of truck is due in no small degree to the habit of dependence, or submission, which the faulty relations between landlords and tenants have fostered. Here, too, however, it may perhaps be said that legislation ought not to be of a local and exceptional character. I may at least be permitted to hope that, in any reform of the land tenancy laws of Scotland, the case of Shetland will not be forgotten.

The introduction of a cla.s.s of peasant proprietors seems impossible, except by some measure resembling the 44th clause of the Irish Land Act, 1870; while the sudden expulsion of the present population, and the subst.i.tution of sheep, would probably be destructive to the fis.h.i.+ng industries as they now subsist.

But the present insecurity of tenure is not consistent either with the permanent interests of the land (in which the country still more than the landlord is concerned), or with the formation or maintenance of a race of independent and intelligent citizens.

Probably a law of landlord and tenant, pa.s.sed with no arriere pensee as to maintaining the authority of the landlord, but with the honest intention of reconciling the rights and interests with the independence of both parties to the contract, would not permit the landlord to evict without cause upon forty days' warning. It may even be maintained that in the present state of agricultural science, no tenure for so short a period as one year ought to be permitted.

Farmers of the larger cla.s.s, however, are or ought to be able to protect themselves in their bargains with landlords; and as this Report has nothing to do with such tenant farmers, they may be left out of the question. But in the case of small fishermen farmers, it is worthy of consideration whether a warning of at least one year, excepting cases of insolvency or specified kinds of misconduct, ought not to be required before eviction from any agricultural holding below a certain rental; and whether in such holdings tenants should not have some summary means of recovering from the landlord or succeeding tenant any extraordinary expenditure they make upon their land or houses.

. (Signed) W. GUTHRIE.

EDINBURGH, <june> 15, 1872

APPENDIX to COMMISSION ON THE TRUCK SYSTEM (SHETLAND).

I.LEASES AND RULES FOR TENANTS.

I.

CONDITIONS OF SET of all LANDS forming parts of the ESTATE of QUENDALE, in the Parishes of DUNROSSNESS, AITHSTING AND SANDSTING, TINGWALL, WHITENESS AND WEISDALE, and LERWICK, in SHETLAND.

1. The proprietor reserves--(1.) All mines and minerals, limestone and stone quarries, marl and clay, in his lands, with full power to work the same. (2.) All sh.e.l.l-fish, and especially mussels and mussel scawps, and all sh.e.l.l-sand on the sh.o.r.es of his lands, with sole and exclusive power to take and use the same. (3.) All game and rabbits on his lands, and sole right to take and kill the same, with full power to enter on and use his lands for that purpose. (4.) All lochs and burns, with power to drain the lochs, and divert the course of the burns, the proprietor making compensation for damage by any of his said operations; and the tenant being ent.i.tled to take and use, for his own purposes only, the limestone, stone quarries, marl and clay in the lands occupied by him, and the sh.e.l.l-fish, mussels, and sh.e.l.l-sand on the sh.o.r.es thereof, subject always to such rules and restrictions as the proprietor may establish or prescribe in regard to any or all of these matters.

2. The proprietor reserves the heritors' share of all ca'ing whales killed or stranded on the sh.o.r.es of his lands; and every tenant, on behalf of himself, and all in family with him, acknowledges the proprietor's right to one-third of such whales.

3. The landlord reserves to himself all tang and other sea-weed, growing and drift, with power to enter upon all his lands, and use the same for the purpose of manufacturing the same, without making any compensation to the tenants therefor; but the tenants shall be ent.i.tled to take such tang and sea-weed as they may require for manure.

4. The proprietor reserves full power -- (l.) To redivide his enclosed lands, to the effect of placing the lands of each tenant in one or more portions, and in a different place or places from where they may have previously lain. (2.) To regulate and control the use of the town mails, gra.s.s, and arable lands, by placing restrictions on the tenants in the keeping of swine, geese, or otherwise. (3.) To enclose or otherwise withdraw from the scattalds such portions, not exceeding one-fourth of each scattald, to be judged of as at the date of each tack, as he may deem proper.

(4.) To regulate the amount of sheep and horse stock to be kept by each tenant on the scattald, so that each tenant shall have an amount of pasturage proportionate to his rent. (5.) To limit the number of swine and geese to be kept by each tenant on the scattald, and, if he sees fit, to prohibit the tenants from turning loose or keeping swine or geese on the scattalds altogether, and, where allowing of such stocks, to place the keeping of them under such regulations as he deems proper.

5. The proprietor reserves all trout fish in the lochs and burns on his lands, and sole right to fish therefor; and every tenant shall be held specially to consent, and shall be expressly bound and obliged, alike as regards himself and all in family with him, to abstain from fis.h.i.+ng for trout (fresh-water or sea-trout alike) in all fresh-water lochs, waters, and burns, and also in all burn-mouths into which the sea-water may flow, and in all voes, inlets, or bays, though consisting wholly or partially of salt or sea-water, into which any fresh-water lochs or burns flow, and bounded wholly or partially by lands belonging to the Busta estate; and shall in no way take, or attempt to take (by rod, net, cruive, or hoovie, or in any other way), any trout fish therein, unless with the express leave of the proprietor; and when such leave extends to fis.h.i.+ng by net, then with a net of the size of mesh, used in the manner, and at the time, and to the extent, expressly allowed and prescribed by him.

6. All tenants shall be bound, if required, to pay, over and above their stipulated rents, their proportion of all public and parochial burdens which the law has laid, or may lay, directly upon tenants, any custom to the contrary notwithstanding.

7. No office house must, hereafter, be erected on the side or end of a dwelling-house, without the written permission of the proprietor; and no tenant shall be ent.i.tled to remove from out the dwelling-house or offices possessed by him at the expiry of his lease, any roof, window, door, loft, stair, or other plenis.h.i.+ng of a like fixed nature, even though furnished and put in by himself, unless his tack specially confers upon him such power; but the incoming tenant shall be bound to pay the outgoing tenant the value of the roofs, windows, and doors of the office-houses, if such roofs, doors, and windows were paid for by him at entry, or furnished by him during his lease.

8. Every tenant shall be bound, throughout the whole currency of his tack, to maintain good and sufficient d.y.k.es of every sort, including yard d.y.k.es, and to maintain sufficient and convenient grinds in his d.y.k.es at all places usual and needful, and to have all d.y.k.es in thorough and sufficient repair, and all grinds sufficient and properly hung, at the latest on or before the first day of April, and to keep up said d.y.k.es and grinds until the first day of November in each year.

9. That in the event of any tenant not keeping d.y.k.es and grinds in sufficient order, the proprietor shall be ent.i.tled to enter upon the lands, and to repair the same, and to charge the tenant 10 per cent.

on the sums expended by him in said repairs; and the amount shall be held as conclusively ascertained and fixed by a certificate thereof, under the hands of the factor on the estate of Quendale for the time.

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