The fishermen hitherto spoken of are not strictly labourers
receiving wages, but may be regarded as vendors of wet fish to
the fish-merchant, or less properly as partners with him. But to
persons employed in curing fish, wages are paid, and are often
paid in goods to their full amount. In the payment of these
persons, especially the women and boys, undisguised truck exists
to an extent not exceeded in any of the trades in which the system
has been carried to the highest perfection; but the important
distinction is to be observed, that little or no compulsion or
influence is required to make the work-people take the goods.
WEEKLY PAYMENTS,
CURING BY CONTRACT
In some of the curing establishments at Lerwick the pays are
as frequent as it is reasonably possible to make them. The people
are paid every week; but in nine cases out of ten a large part of
their weekly wages is anticipated in supplies at the employer's
shop. This of course involves an amount of time and trouble,
and a risk of bad debts, which no merchant would incur, except
for a large profit, and which indeed led Messrs. Harrison & Sons
to refuse altogether to give 'out-takes' to work-people of this
class. The wages are, however, paid at Lerwick, and some of the
people spend their money at the shops of the firm, which adjoin
the pay-office. At Scalloway, where Messrs. Garriock & Co. have
no shop, they employ persons at daily wages, which are paid
weekly, or within the fortnight. But the habit of running accounts
is so inveterate in Shetlanders that 'often what they have to get on
the Saturday night is forestalled in the shops.' In contracts for
curing, which are sometimes made, Messrs. Garriock & Co. have
no dealings with the work-people employed by the contractors, but
make such advances as are necessary to them in money. It is not
always so where curing is ostensibly done by contract. Thus, in
Unst, many of the work-people employed by a contractor at
Westing have accounts in the shop-books of Spence & Co. at Uyea
Sound; settlements being effected, and sometimes advances made,
by the merchants themselves on the authority of lines given by the
contractor, stating the amount of the beach fee. The balance due is
ascertained in the merchant's books, after deducting the amount
due by the contractor for his own supplies at the shop.
[W.B.M. Harrison, 15,772; J. Manson, 2941; L.F.U. Garriock,
12,445, 12,443; A. Sandison, 10,108; P. Smith, 10,344.]