At Wick many of the resident fishermen are nothing but
fishermen; but some who fish from Wick in summer have small
farms along the coast, and many of the hired men who are required
for the herring fishing come from Highland districts, where they
combine agricultural and seafaring occupations during the rest of
the year. The paper by Mr. M'Lennan of Wick affords interesting
information with regard to the Wick fisheries. It shows, by the
experience of the haddock fishing and the winter cod fishing,
that payment to crews fishing on shares, or 'on deal' as it is there
called, may easily be made each Saturday night; by that of the
winter herring fishing that payment may be made at landing the
fish, and by that of the Lewis herring fishery, how a settlement in
a very extensive fishing with complicated arrangements is made
immediately at the close of the fishing season.
[Mr M'Lennan, Appendix II; D. Davidson, G.S. Sutherland,
16,806, 16,750.]
At Wick the herring fishing 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 fishing without supplies
being advanced to them. Except, however, as regards boats
and fishing 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, fishing 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 pass
an Act of Parliament for the protection of a particular trade in a
single county, unless it be fully ascertained that its circumstances
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 analogous to those which the Merchant Shipping 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 pass-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.