721. Then you say that you never see any statement of your account for goods supplied to you at the shop at all?-None, except the total. The total is handed in to Mr. Bruce at settling time. 722. Is there anything else you wish to say?-There is one thing I would like to ask. In consequence of my coming here, I expect nothing but that I will be turned off; and I would ask how I am to proceed. 723. I don't think you need be afraid of that; but if there is anything done to you in consequence of the evidence which you have given here, you had better write and let me know. Of course I am only to be here for a short time; but it would be my duty to communicate the fact to some of my superiors. There is one other thing I would like to mention: that any amount of liberty would be of very little account in Shetland, so long as the proprietors have power to turn off men at any time when they have a mind to do so. 724. At the end of the summer fishing is there generally a balance in your favour at the accounting between you and the landlord?- Sometimes there is, and sometimes not. I believe I generally stand about half and half. 725. Do you mean that if your fishing is worth £18, your account at the store and your rent will be about £9 or £10?-No; there are some years in which my account at the store, and my rent, are above the whole amount of my year's earnings,-while there are other years when my earnings are above my shop account and rent. 726. When the year's earnings are less than your account, is the balance written down against you for the next year?-Yes. 727. Then that is an additional reason why you are bound to fish to your landlord, because when you are in his debt you cannot very well sell your fish to another?-If we had our liberty, we could sell our fish to another merchant. 728. But suppose you had liberty, would not the fact of your being in debt to your landlord still be a sort of obligation upon you to fish for him?-It would still bind us, of course. 729. Does that cause operate, in fact, to tie the fishermen to the same merchant?-When the men have had their liberty, that has been the case. 730. Was it the case before Mr. Bruce took the fishing into his own hands?-Yes. 731. So that many men in those times would be unable to sell their fish to another merchant than Messrs. Hay or Mr. Robertson, who had the fishing then?-Yes; of course there were times when the fishing was small, and perhaps men required a lot of meal, and they could not get it without going into debt; and when merchants supported them in that way, the men could not do better than hand over their fish to the merchants to whom they were in debt. 732. So that there was even then a certain obligation on the men to fish to a particular merchant?-[Page 15] Yes. When a man is in debt, he is under an obligation to clear his debt.