Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 79

2559. Are there dealers in the north isles who send goods to you?-Either dealers or private individuals may send us falls or various other things, and the entries with regard to them will show the prices given for them.

2560. These transactions will appear in the day-book?-I think so.

2561.You think Mr. Sandison, your bookkeeper, would be better able to point these out than you?-He would be better able to lay his hand on them; but sometimes we buy from dealers and pay cash for them, and same thing applies in that case which Mr.

Laurenson stated, that we charge a small percentage on these goods, because we pay in cash for them.

2562. You put in the trade list, and you also put in a copy invoice, which you have shown to me, containing the prices at which you have sold the goods there mentioned?-Yes. It shows that there is a certain discount allowed; but that discount does not come off the profits charged on the hosiery, but off the sales of goods I give for them.

2563. Do you calculate that there is a larger profit upon hosiery goods which are made by your own knitters than on those which you buy and sell in the way you have described?-That is it question I have sometimes asked myself; and, taking the thing altogether, I don't think there is much difference.

2564. Don't you allow a little for the extra trouble and risk you have with your knitters?-There is a certain market price that we cannot get beyond. We must take the price in the market. Unless one merchant was able to monopolize the trade altogether, and force up the prices, he would not get more than the market price of the goods.

2565. You have said that the footing on which you settle with your knitters and with those who sell to you is, that the bargain between you is that they are to take goods?-That is the understanding. We do not make any formal bargain.

2566. Is that bargain made with the knitters whom you employ at the time when you give out the wool?-I have said already that we make no formal bargain, but it is generally understood that we pay them in kind. They know that, and consequently they very seldom ask for anything else. But we don't stick entirely to that.

2567. You sometimes give them cash?-Yes.

2568. Is it regarded as a great favour to pay them a considerable sum in cash?-I may give an instance. The general price paid for knitting a fall of Shetland yarn is about 1s. That is about the average price, although the coa.r.s.er quality may be lower than that.

The yarn for that fall costs us from 6d. to 7d. That is paid in cash; and the girl is paid part in cash and part in goods, or it may be all in goods. That brings up the cost to 19d.; but if it is wanted black we must pay freight south, in order to have it dyed, and freight back to Shetland. We also pay for the dyeing of it; and these things altogether come to about 11/2d. per fall-that is 1s. 81/2d.; and then there is dressing, 1d.

2569. When do you send it south for dyeing?-When it is made.

2570. And do you bring it back here to be dressed?-Yes; that is an additional expense upon it, which has never been pointed out.

2571. Could it not be dressed in the south?-No, it could not.

2572. It must come back here simply for the dressing?-Yes; we could not value it unless we got it back and sorted it, and knew the value of it.

2573. You don't know the value of it until it is dressed?-We do not ask ourselves the value before then. We know the average value of them pretty nearly; but we send them south, and get them back dyed, and then we must dress them. There are a number of them which may be damaged, either in the working or the dyeing, and that detracts from their value, and that very fall I am now referring to, when it comes to be sold, will not bring more than perhaps 2s. In that way you can calculate where our profit lies.

There are cheaper falls that do not bring more than 18d., and sometimes even lower.

2574. Then I understand you to say that in every bargain with a knitter, and generally with a seller, of a shawl, the understanding is that they are to take the price in goods?-Yes; that has been so time out of mind: I remember a time about forty years ago, when it was different and when there were two prices on goods which they sold.

2575. There were two prices then-one for cash, and the other for goods?-Yes; perhaps from 20 to per cent. of difference. I remember hearing that question discussed at my father's fire when I was a mere youth. I have been told, although I do know it [Page 56] myself, because I was not in the trade then, a woman may have bought a piece of goods for 16d., when a party paying cash for it only paid 1s. The more intelligent of, the natives thought that was an iniquitous thing; but then it was always known and done avowedly, and the people yielded to it. They said it was not possible for them to take barter, and sell their goods at the same rate because there was so much risk and outlay. That reason never appeared satisfactory to me; and it was not until I came behind the scenes, as it were, that I saw the reason for it was, that the value given for Shetland goods was far beyond what it really was worth in the market. Its real value in the market was about the same amount less than what was charged as an addition upon the goods. What I mean is that, supposing a woman came in with a pair of stockings, the real market price of which was 2s., but for which she wished 2s. 6d., the merchant, in order to secure a sale for his goods, would give her goods in exchange of the nominal value of 2s. 6d., but he would put 3d. a yard on the price of the goods which he gave in exchange. That explains how it is that a person knowing the value of the articles, seeing the purchase which the woman might have made, and hearing the price of it, might have said that they were about 25 per cent. too high, whereas in reality they were not so. She had merely been getting value for her goods, although she did not know it; and it would not have made any difference; although it had been as many pounds higher, while the relative proportions were kept up between the value of the two articles.

2576. Is that done now?-Not that I know of.

2577. If a woman puts a higher price on her goods, is it not the usual thing for a merchant to put a little additional on the price of the goods which he is to give her in exchange?-I don't know what other merchants do, but we never do it. Only the other day, a woman carried out two shawls which I could have bought if I had departed from our usual practice, but I thought they were priced too high. I could have sold the shawls at 1s. or 2s. lower, but I would not buy them these terms. We have one fixed price for cash and goods. I am not aware whether the practice I have mentioned exists now in the town; I don't think it does. When I commenced business I made it a point fix my price in that way, and I have always adhered that. I was told by some parties I would never do business in that manner; but I had some faith in common sense, and I hoped the people would come to see that they were as well dealt with in taking the real cash value and getting the real cash value; so that we never give a higher price than we consider the thing is worth in the market, and we do not give lower.

2578. You say your understanding is, that goods are to be taken in payment, but that cash is given to a small extent: do you not consider that to be a departure from the understanding?- Decidedly.

2579. You do that, as a favour to the knitter?-Yes; and I wish it to be distinctly understood, that in every case when I give 1s. of cash, I consider it is just 2d. out of my pocket.

2580. Would you not have that profit if the 1s. was spent in your shop?-Yes.

2581. With regard to the lines or receipts which you issue, can you say whether they are generally presented at your shop by the parties to whom they were originally given out?-They are made payable to the bearer, and they may not be presented by these parties.

2582. But, in point of fact, are they generally presented by the parties to whom they have been given out?-It is impossible to know who they have been given out to, or who brings them back.

2583. Then what is the purpose of your keeping this register of them?-It is a check upon the lines. If we had no check of that kind, we would not know what lines were out.

2584. And you would not know what amount was lying out in that way?-No; that is one reason for keeping it. Another thing is, that if a line was lost, and its value paid to another person who had found it, we could see by this book when it was paid.

2585. Could it show to whom it was paid?-No.

2586. I suppose the lines themselves are destroyed when they have been settled for?-Yes.

2587. You have no means of telling from your books, whether they have been presented by the original creditor in them, or by another?-No.

2588. And you don't know about that from your own personal knowledge?-As regards my own personal knowledge, I know that, in the generality of cases, they are presented by the parties to whom they have been given originally.

2589. Does that lead you to conclude that this system of lines is not a new kind of currency that has been generally adopted in Shetland?-I never heard of that.

2590. Does one of these lines pa.s.s from hand to hand, in payment for what the creditor in it wants?-Not to my knowledge. It is only now or lately that I have ever heard of such a thing being done.

2591. You have not known of them being transferred to other hands, and being presented by some one from whom the knitter has obtained other goods or services?-There never was any such thing stated to me.

2592. Of course you pay the value of the line to any one who presents it?-Yes. There was a girl, Borthwick, examined here, who said she had to sell her tea at half-price, in order to get other things which she wanted. I spoke to her about it, and said I had never heard of such a thing being done before, and that she must be a great fool to do anything of the kind; for she had come to us and said that she wanted the money, she would have got it upon giving a small discount for it.

2593. Have you actually given money upon that discount when requested?-I have.

2594. That is to say, one of these lines has been presented to you and cash asked for it?-Yes; part cash. I have sometimes given cash on these lines, although it was goods that was bargained for.

2595. The lines bear to be payable in goods?-Yes; but when I saw that the person was really requiring the cash, and that it was not just a 'try-on,' as it were, I took 2d. off the 1s. and paid in cash.

2596. May that have occurred often?-No; very seldom.

2597. Has it been lately?-Yes. I was obliged to make that deduction, because, if I had not done so, it would have opened a door for a system which would have robbed us of every penny of profit. If we were obliged to pay cash instead of goods, we would have no profit at all.

2598. But that has occurred sometimes?-I think it has only occurred twice in the whole of my transactions.

2599. When a discount is taken in that way, how is the entry made in the line-book?-The lines are entered when they are finally paid up. The way in which they are paid does not appear here at all.

2600. Then that discount will not appear in the book?-No; but I may say that I often give small sums of cash on these lines without taking a discount, where I think the person is really in need of it.

2601. I think you said these lines were very seldom given to women whom you employ to knit for you?-Very seldom, I think.

2602. Can you name any of these women who have got them?-I cannot; perhaps Mr. Sandison can. He is more in the way of settling with these people than I am.

2603. Have you any dealings in stockings and the commoner kinds of hosiery?-The price-list will show that.

2604. Is the system of dealing in these just the same as you have already described?-The same principle applies to all the trade.

2605. That kind of goods is generally brought in from the country, I understand?-Yes, generally.

2606. Is it the case that people coming in from the country take goods more readily than the town?-There are very few of the people from the country who ask for cash, but they are now beginning [Page 57] to do it. They think the Truck Commission will force us to give cash.