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.] THE FORTY DAYS' WARNING TOO SHORT