795. How long ago was that?-I think it would be about thirteen years since, or close thereby. 796. That is an old story. Has there been anybody ejected since?- I don't remember any one at present. 797. Do you know from your own knowledge of any threats of ejection having been made to parties who were fishing for others?-Yes. 798. Who were so threatened?-We were threatened at that very time, eight years ago, that we should be ejected if we did not sign the agreement. 799. But do you know of any threats to particular parties for particular offences since that time?-There never have been any threats made to me, and I cannot remember exactly about them having been used to others; but there are parties here who may remember better about that than I do. 800. You say further in the letter, 'We can get no leases of our farms, and we have to build and repair our own houses at our own expense, without any compensation when leaving the farm, or when ejected from it.' That does not exactly fall under this inquiry, though it may perhaps indirectly affect it; but I suppose the obligation to build and repair your own houses is part of the bargain you enter into on taking the land?-It is. 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. What 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. 807. To come to the more proper subject of the inquiry: you go on to say, 'As we settle only once year, of course we have to buy from our landlord's shop till the end of the year, at which time we have seldom any money to get, except when we have better fishings than ordinary.' Your settlement, I suppose, takes place about the beginning of the year for the whole of the previous year?-Yes; generally a month after the beginning of the year. 808. And at that time you settle with your landlords, Messrs. Hay & Co., for all the provisions you have got from their shop?-Yes. 809. Where is their shop?-They have shops both at Lerwick and Scalloway.