The existing Truck Act (as well as the Bill now before Parliament) prohibits the payment of wages in goods in the various trades to which it applies. Even, therefore, if fishermen formed one of the classes of workmen falling under the Act, they would not be protected by it, because they do not receive wages, but are paid a price for their fish. One result of this is, that Truck, as it exists in Shetland, is without disguise or concealment. No machinery has been contrived for evading the law; and almost all the masters, and even some of the fishermen, regard the system which prevails, as wholesome, natural, and indeed inevitable. I have already explained that the price of the fish is ascertained and settled only for once in the year. But fishermen, as Adam Smith remarks, have been poor since the days of Theocritus; and in Shetland the Truck system begins when, his farm produce failing to support the family, the fisherman farmer finds it necessary to obtain from the 'merchant' supplies or advances before the time of settlement, and, it may be, a boat, fishing materials, and provisions, to enable him to prosecute his calling. In Shetland the merchant needs to use no influence or compulsion to bring the fisherman to his shop. He has no black-list, and has to enforce no penalties for 'sloping.' As the laws against Truck do not apply to him, even remotely, he scarcely ever seeks to conceal the fact that the earnings of those whom he employs are paid to a large extent, in goods, and he is even prepared with arguments in vindication of the practice. The man whose farm cannot keep his family until settlement, comes, as a matter of course, to the fish-curer's store; and even the thriving and prosperous man, who has money in the bank, 'almost invariably' has an account at the shop. In the great majority cases there is a mutual understanding, that when a merchant buys your fish, you ought in fairness to get at least a part of your goods at his shop. [Andrew Tulloch, 509; L. Mail, 568; W. Williamson, 855; P.M. Sandison, 5146; Rev. D. Miller, 5998; J. Brown, 7986, 7997; T.M. Adie, 5633; 5735; A. Tulloch, 5472, 5501; John Anderson, 6546; G. Robertson, 9311; G. Gilbertson, 9557; J. Laurenson, 9837; M. Henderson, 9830-1; J. Harper, 10,387; C. Nicolson, 11,939; A. Abernethy, 12,268; L. Garriock, p. 303a etc., 12,347, 12,356, 12,360, 12,388 sq.; T. Hutchison, 12,686; L. Henderson, 12,744; J. Halcrow, 13,090; R. Simpson, 13,980; John Robertson, jun., 15169.]