34 TEE INDUSTRIES OF SHETLAND. rNov., 



merchants at the rent of £'1,100, and in the sub-leases there is no 

 expressed obligation either to fish for the merchants or to purchase 

 goods at their store, but the reservation of peats and of the scathold 

 binds the crofter-farmers hand and foot, and they must fish and fag 

 for their masters, according to the conscience of tlie latter, or lose those 

 two indispensables of Shetland life — firing, and food for cows and 

 ponies. 



At the outset of his inquiries, the Commissioner, Mr. Guthrie, met 

 with a difficulty and complication connected with his subject which 

 may very probably explain the inertness of the Government at that 

 time in dealing with an acknowledged abuse, Mr. Guthrie declared 

 in his Eeport that ' it is impossible to separate the question of Truck 

 in Shetland from the land question : (1) because Truck, in the form 

 in which it chiefly exists, has arisen out of the old relations between 

 landlords and tenants, in t?ie times when the landlords were the 

 principal or the only purchasers and curers of fish ; and (2) because 

 to a very material extent the relations between the fish-curers and 

 the fishermen are still subservient and ancillary to the landlord's 

 security for his rent.' 



By way of alleviation the Commis.sioner suggested cash payment 

 at short intervals for fish and hosiery, and a limitation of action upon 

 debts ; but such patching of a rotten .system, mixed up as it is with 

 the land question, would not free the people from the trammels they 

 are under. The Sheriff Clerk, on the contrary, when he was asked 

 for rem.edies, promptly rejjlied — ' The merchants say that the reason 

 for caiTying out this system is, that the people would starve six 

 months in the year if they did not make these advances, I>ut I hold 

 that to be utterly wrong. If the merchants advance them for two or 

 three months, the tenants or common people supply capital to the 

 merchants for the other eight months. They supjjly tlieir fi.sh, and 

 produce, and cattle, and everything. I should certainly urge that it 

 should be made penal to pay the like of these ignorant ]>eople (Aler- 

 vjise tJian in luj/i'l cask.' 



The witness tlien expressed the following opinions. He wa.s 

 asked — 'You would extend the Truck Act to the Shetland fisheries?' 



* Yes; and I would have a still more stringent Act.' 



' Would you require a special Act for Shetland ? ' 



'Decidedly so, if you value the interests of .31,000 people.' 



Mr. Guthrie's rnilcl report contains the customary acknowledg- 

 ments of the results of insecure tenure to which the country has been 

 now accustomed for a hundred years, since the earliest declarations 

 of Arthur Young. He says — ' The present insecurity of tenure is 

 not consistent either with the jjermaneut interests of the land (in 

 which the country still more than the landlord is concerned), or with 



