Part 102 (2/2)
No curer would be safe to make these advances, without the men engaging to deliver their fish-a new boat alone costing about 20 without lines, The price of the summer fish is seldom fixed until the end of the season, when the fish are sold for the south-country markets.
Fishermen are quite safe with this arrangement. They know the compet.i.tion between curers all over the islands is so keen, that they are secure to get the highest possible price that the markets can afford. Any curer that can offer a little advantage to the fishermen over the others is certain to get more boats the following year; and this is carried so far, that men with limited capital, in their endeavours to obtain a large share of the trade by giving credit and gratuities, in one way and another leave nothing to themselves, and in the end come to grief. I have known crews to be engaged at fixed prices before the commencement of the fis.h.i.+ng but as markets improved towards the end of the season, we were obliged to throw the agreement aside and pay the same as others, in order not to lose the men's services the following year.
When the fis.h.i.+ng season is over and the fish prepared for market, south-country dealers contract for it at prices free on board; and with them again there is compet.i.tion, so that curers seldom fail to get the full value of the article.
People in the south, who have to pay perhaps 4s. to 7s. 6d. for a fresh cod or ling, are surprised to hear that the poor Shetland fishermen only get 6d. to 9d.; and we have had a great deal of clever writing on this subject lately, without much common sense.
The s.h.i.+pping price of ling in the past season has been 23,-rather higher than usual,-and fishermen have been paid 8s. per cwt.
wet, or about 9d. per fish. Although it has been rather a good year for curers, the following statement will show that fortunes are not rapidly acc.u.mulated in the trade:-
21/4 cwt. wet fish, cured ready for market, weigh only 1 cwt.-21/4 cwt. @ 8s.0 180 Add cost of salt, hire of vats, tubs, tarpaulins, and other curing materials; also wages to men and boys splitting, was.h.i.+ng, and drying; and expense of flitting from beaches-weighing and storing usually reckoned. .. 0 3 0 1 1 0
21s. per cwt., or 21 per ton, leaving 40s. to the curer, out of which he has to pay store rent, weighing, s.h.i.+pping, skippers' fees, gratuities to fishermen, and to meet loss by small and damaged fish, and of interest-the sales being made at three months in October, and the men settled with in November; and further, when the risk of sales is also taken into account, the sum left to remunerate the curer for his season's work is not very large.
One great drawback on a Shetland business is fishermen's bad debts, and our chief study is to limit the supplies when we know the men to be improvident; but it is quite impossible to keep men clear when the fis.h.i.+ng proves unsuccessful. There is no difficulty, however, when dealing with careful men.
At various stations round the islands near the fis.h.i.+ng grounds, where there are natural beaches, the men have small huts to live in during the fis.h.i.+ng season, and the crews a.s.semble there about the middle of May to commence operations. The merchants or fish-curers have the necessary curing materials on the spot, and factors, splitters, and beach boys attending to receive and cure the fish; and, while the fis.h.i.+ng is carried on, the men go to their respective homes every Sat.u.r.day, taking with them small and unmerchantable fish for the use of their families-returning to the stations, with provisions for the week, every Monday. They generally make two or three trips during the week, according to the state of the weather, and weigh and deliver over the catch when they land. Their families get supplies from the factor's shop as required; but the men have opportunities weekly of seeing their accounts and can limit these supplies if they choose.
The Whalsay fishermen deliver their fish in summer, and live at small holms to seaward of the main island near the fis.h.i.+ng ground, and a large boat is employed to remove their fish to the beach at Simbister to be dried. The men are thus enabled to make more voyages to the haaf than by landing each time at the curing-beach.
As settling time approaches, our managers in the country prepare by sending for the men, and reading over to them individually their private accounts, comparing and making up pa.s.s-books, where any are kept, and giving copies of the accounts when desired; and when we come to settle, each man knows exactly the amount of his season's expenditure.
If a ready-money system were adopted, and payments made in cash for each landing, I believe it would scarcely be practicable to carry it out. Large sums of money would require to be kept at these stations,-men with some knowledge of figures and accounts to be always present,-and half the fishermen's time would be taken up with the settlements. The money would then be carried home to their families, and in many cases at the end of the season there would be little left to pay rent and provide necessaries for the winter months, when there are no fis.h.i.+ngs, and no work except at their own farms. Such a mode of dealing would otherwise injure the men, as curers with small means would be driven out of the trade, and in some measure compet.i.tion prevented.
From twenty-five to thirty years ago I had several opportunities of seeing how the fis.h.i.+ngs were conducted Barra and South Uist.
At that time the fishermen were all living in wretched hovels along the sea-coast, and the islands let for grazing cattle and in sheep farms. Very few of them were able to keep a cow, and they knew nothing of the luxuries of life, and could scarcely command a bare existence. Their chief living in winter [Page 85] and spring was potatoes not fit for pigs, and sh.e.l.l-fish, with any small fish they could catch in the bays. There were plenty of fish on the coast, but no middle-men with capital to encourage the men to work. In summer they prosecuted the fis.h.i.+ng a little distance outside of the islands, where their buoys could be seen from the sh.o.r.e. Their boats were clumsy and unmanageable-some with sails and some without; and the lines were made by themselves out of hemp obtained on credit, and only lasted one year. They were set on the fis.h.i.+ng ground at the commencement of the season, and seldom taken up to dry. Now, however, I understand large capital is embarked in the fis.h.i.+ng trade in that quarter, and of late years it has been very prosperous, and the circ.u.mstances of the natives greatly improved.
In 1785 a Commissioner was sent by Government to inquire into the state of the fisheries in the Hebrides, and in his report to a committee of the House of Commons, on being asked 'whether he thought it would be benefit to the lower cla.s.ses of people if any of the tacksmen or others were debarred by law from entering into a contract with these people for obtaining the pre-emption of their fish, etc., as specified in his report,' he answered, 'That, so far from thinking it would be a benefit to the people, he should think it would prove a material injury to them; for they have no other possible way of being supplied with the necessaries they want from distant markets but by the intervention of those persons who keep stores in the manner described in the report; neither have they in general any means of finding money to purchase boats and other necessary apparatus for fis.h.i.+ng; and that, unless they were furnished by these storekeepers upon credit, very few of them could engage in the fisheries at all; and, in the present situation of that country, as they have no other possible way of paying the debts they thus contract but by the fish they catch, no person would furnish these upon credit unless they had the pre-emption of them: that it has been already stated in the report, that this kind of trade, though apparently very oppressive to the poor in all cases, affords but very little profit to the merchants; and that he knew several instances where the people who keep these stores, by acting in a disinterested manner, have contributed very essentially to promote the welfare of the country.'
Since that date the Shetland fisheries also have been largely extended by the introduction of capital and the opening of stores among the different islands, where the men can always obtain fis.h.i.+ng materials and supplies for their families; but to the present day the answer still holds good: curers must have the pre-emption of the fish, as a security for payment.
In the evidence before the Truck Commission in Edinburgh lately, witnesses were examined who had little knowledge of Shetland business, and many of the statements were not only contrary to fact, but simply absurd. For instance, can any man of common sense imagine that a merchant would come to grief in consequence of not having enough of bad debts, and that if he could carry on until he had 2000 of bad debts, he would do a flouris.h.i.+ng trade, 'because they keep it going in a circle, and it never gets worse?'
That was one of the extraordinary statements made to the Commission. Is it not clear that if a dealer with small means emptied his shop of goods to people who could not pay for them, then, as soon as the bills he had granted for these goods fell due, he might shut it up?
As already mentioned, the Shetland fis.h.i.+ng trade has been largely developed by increased capital of late years, but in all time past it has been conducted on the same principles, with few modifications, as at present, and will be so, I think, in all time coming. If the islands and their fis.h.i.+ng banks could be removed to near London, where the fish might be sold fresh at high prices, the fishermen would be greatly benefited; but as this is impossible, we must all submit to the inevitable. It is true, Government may attempt to change the trade by Act of Parliament; but in that case they will either have to remove the entire fis.h.i.+ng population to some other and better country, or keep them at home as paupers, by annual grants for food and clothing.
We are not engaged in the hosiery trade; but I know it to be the most troublesome business in the islands, being conducted chiefly by barter. I think it could not be carried on very well to any extent otherwise. We would be quite ready to embark in it and buy for cash, if we could make a commission; but I do not believe it would pay the expenses and servants' wages. Giving goods in exchange, hosiers can afford to allow a much higher price for the articles than we could for cash, and therefore very little of the trade would come our way if we took it up.
Besides the fis.h.i.+ng trade, we have acted a long time as agents for s.h.i.+ps engaged in the Greenland and Davis' Straits whale and seal fis.h.i.+ng. These vessels call here to complete their crews in February and March; and when they return, the men are either landed at Lerwick, or some other point of the islands as they pa.s.s south. When they go out, the men are engaged at the s.h.i.+pping office, and receive a month's wages in advance, in presence of the s.h.i.+pping master, and the agents are reimbursed when they send the accounts to the owners. When the s.h.i.+ps return and the men are landed, they disperse without a moment's delay (in most cases) to their several homes, and come back to Lerwick to settle for their wages and first payment of oil-money, individually, as it suits their own convenience; and in the same way, a second time, to receive the balance of their oil-money and sign the s.h.i.+p's release. This may be better understood from the following correspondence that took place the past year between Hay & Co. and one of the Peterhead s.h.i.+powners, in respect to a notice said to be issued by the Board of Trade, headed 'Truck System in Lerwick:'-
'PETERHEAD, 16<th march=””> 1871.
'R. KIDD <to> HAY & CO.
'I enclose you letter I have received from H.M. Customs as regards the engaging and paying of the men engaged in the Greenland fis.h.i.+ng s.h.i.+ps. You will know how to act in regard to this. You have likely received direct orders, and I only enclose it to keep you in mind of it.'
The doc.u.ment to which Mr. Kidd's letter refers is given below.*
* 'TRUCK SYSTEM IN LERWICK.
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