In all the cases where tenants are bound to fish for the landlord,
there is a firm conviction that the penalty of disobedience is
eviction, or payment of 'liberty money.' 'We knew quite well,'
said James Flawes (4964), a tenant on Quendale, 'from the
statement which was made to us before, that, if any one
transgressed the rule, the penalty would just be our forty days'
warning.' And cases of threatened removal for this cause, and
payment of liberty money or fines, though not common, have yet
been sufficiently numerous to keep alive a wholesome
apprehension, and prevent widespread disobedience. Eviction to a
Shetlander is a serious matter, especially when it is for such a
cause as this. A new farm is always difficult to get. 'In the south,'
says one witness, 'a man can shift from town to town and get
employment; but here, if he leaves his house and farm, he has no
place to go to except Lerwick, and there is no room to be got there,
either for love or money.'
[W. Irvine, 3625, 3755; L. Smith, 4486; J. Flawes, 4956; C.
Eunson, 5069; J. Johnston, 9238; J. Hutchison, 12,693; Peter
Smith, 1012; M. Malcolmson, 2994; W. Manson, 3025; W.
Goudie, 4274, 4385, etc.; H. Sinclair, 5320; John Johnston, 9423;
T.M. Adie, 5770.]
There is an impression, not perhaps always correct in a region
where the excessive subdivision of land is ascribed to the desire of
landlords to increase the number of their fishing tenants, that a
man who is independent enough to differ from his landlord with
regard to the terms of his lease is not likely to find favour in the
eyes of other proprietors. A witness, speaking of another condition
of his holding, says:-
'801. Are you not at liberty to make your own bargain about the
land, the same as any other tenant in Scotland is?-I am not aware
of that.'
'802. Suppose you were to object to make such a bargain, could
you not leave the land and get a holding elsewhere?-It is not
likely we would get a holding elsewhere.'
'803. Why?-We would very likely be deprecated as not being
legal subjects, and the heritors would all know that we were not
convenient parties to give land to. That is one reason; and another
reason is, that places are sometimes not very easily got.'
'804. Do the same conditions exist on other properties in
Shetland?-So far as I know, they prevail all over the country, or
nearly so.'
805. You think that, if you were trying to move, you would not get
free of a condition of that sort?-We might get free of it for a
time, but by next year the parties to whose ground we had removed
might bind us down to the same thing.'
806. But supposing all the men were united in refusing to agree to
such conditions, there could be no compulsion upon them?-They
have not the courage, I expect, to make such an agreement among
themselves.'
[Walter Williamson, 801.]