Part 136 (1/2)

5117. Have you any pa.s.s-book?-No, I don't keep any pa.s.s-book.

5118. Is your account read over to you at settlement time?-Yes.

5119. And you see that it is correct?-Yes; so far as my judgment leads me.

5120. But you say you don't get many goods at the store: is that because you can get them cheaper elsewhere?-Perhaps that is sometimes the reason, and sometimes I don't require the things which are there. I always take my fis.h.i.+ng materials, lines and hooks, and other things of that kind, from the store.

5121. Are these things reasonably priced?-We suppose they are much the same as in other places in the neighbourhood.

Lerwick, January 9, 1872, HENRY LESLIE, examined.

5122. You are a fisherman, and a tenant under Grierson at Gord?-I am.

5123. You have heard the evidence of Flawes and the others?- Yes.

5124. Do you agree with it, so far as you know?-Yes.

5125. You know the facts which have been stated by them to be true?-Yes.

5126. Have you been a long time a tenant on that estate?-Yes; for fifty years at any rate.

5127. At the commencement of that period, were you free to fish to any one you liked?-No; there has always been a bond on that estate to fish to Mr. Grierson, or to any one to whom the fish were let. That has been the case all my time, and I have been more than sixty years there.

5128. Have you fished to anybody else during any part of that time?-No; it was always to him. There were three years when Mr. Bruce and Mr Grierson were in company together.

5129. But before that you were not free?-No; I never knew a time when we were free all the time I have been there.

5130. Who did you fish to before that?-To Mr. Grierson and to his father. I fished to the present Mr. Grierson's grandfather, and I was at the beach to him.

5131. Was he a fish-curer and fish-merchant also?-Yes.

[Page 127]

5132. Was that property ever set in tack to a fish-merchant?-Yes; but that was before my day.

5133. Has the obligation to fish always been a part of the condition on which you held your land?-Yes.

5134. Were you present at the time when young Mr. Grierson intimated to the tenants that he was taking the fis.h.i.+ng into his own hands?-Yes; I and every man and boy on the estate were all a.s.sembled in the same room, and we all heard the same agreement read

5135. Was not that the beginning of the present state of things under which you are now bound to fish?-Yes.

5136. Then you were free before that?-No, we were not free; but we wrought upon a different scale.

5137. Were you bound at that time to fish for Mr. Grierson?-Yes.

5138. Is there anything you wish to add to the statement which the other men have made about the present state of things?-I have nothing to add to what the other Quendale men have stated.

5139. Have you been getting meal from Mr. Grierson's store?- No; I have got none there for the last two years. I required none during that time.