224 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



individual or collective, on the part of the foremast hands. 

 It seems reasonably clear, then, that under the lay system 

 the whaleman received little or no extra reward for the en- 

 forced assumption of an appreciable share of the business risks 

 of the industry. In view of the unusual extent and intensity of 

 those risks it is not surprising to find that they were diffused as 

 widely as possible, instead of being focussed sharply upon the 

 entrepreneur. Risk-sharing by means of product-sharing was 

 a natural and logical method of remuneration, in particular, 

 during the simple beginnings of American whaling. When 

 worker and entrepreneur were intimately associated, if not en- 

 tirely merged, in making short voyages in small vessels, each 

 party to the division of product was able to bargain on terms 

 of equality with the other. 



But with the later expansion of the industry came a speciali- 

 zation which might have been expected to make management 

 and financial risk-bearing the peculiar functions of the entre- 

 preneur. The owners and agents who remained at home were 

 now sharply differentiated from the workers who went to seaj 

 the thousands of men in the crews made it possible for the out- 

 fitters, boarding-house keepers, shipping-masters, and other 

 species of landsharks to intrench themselves strongly in the 

 whaling ports j and the older conditions of simplicity and in- 

 timacy were displaced by specialization of function, intricacies 

 of structure, and problems of organization. In spite of these 

 developments, however, the entrepreneurs steadily refused to 

 allow any crystallization of risk-bearing — a refusal which was 

 made possible by the force of custom and tradition (always 

 strong in seafaring communities), the deteriorating character 

 of the crews, and the greater bargaining power of the owners. 

 As a result the continuance of the lay system and the fall of the 

 fractional lay caused the whaleman to retain his full share of 

 business risk even while relinquishing his claim to a corre- 

 sponding proportion of the net proceeds. 



But if the lay remained not only supreme, but virtually un- 

 attacked, its applied severity was modified in two directions. 

 An authorized discharge, given during the course of a cruise, 

 implied the calculation and receipt of the net earnings then 

 due, thus obviating the necessity of waiting until the end of the 



