Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 78

2511. Does that mean that you have issued some 6000 or 8000 of these lines in two years?-I suppose so. It will just mean about that.

2512. Can you give me any idea, or do your books give any idea, within what time these lines are brought back to be liquidated?- Sometimes in two hours, and sometimes longer. When we take goods from the knitters, we generally, in order to prevent any mistake, give them a receipt for them in that form; and having other work to do when we are very busy, they take that in their pocket and go away, and then they look in again when we have a slack moment and get the value of it, sometimes on the very same day. I don't know how often it is on the same day, but it is very often.

2513. Are these lines only given to the people who sell you goods, or are they given also to your work-people?-There are very few of the work-people who got lines in that way. It is only when the people selling goods that they may get such a line if they want it.

2514. Can you tell me any of your work-people who have got lines in that way?-I cannot; but the work-book would show if such lines had been given.

2515. In what way does the work-book show it?-By an entry to the individual's debit. I think you will find very few of them.

2516. What do you call these things? Do you call them I O U's, or receipts, or lines; or what are they?-They are just vouchers for their value.

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2517. Is it a general practice in the trade in Lerwick to give these lines?-It is only within the last few years that it has been practised to any extent, and we would, much rather do away with them if we could.

2518. How could they be done away with?-Just by giving the people value for their goods when they bring them. That is the only way I know.

2519. Do you mean the value in cash?-The value in cash or in goods. If it cash tariff were introduced, which I suppose would be better for the whole of us, it would save us all this bother.

2520. Do you think it would be better to have a cash system introduced altogether?-It would be better for the trade, at any rate.

2521. But the nominal price paid to the knitters would in that case be less?-I think that, in some cases, not only the nominal but the real price would be less.

2522. Do you mean that the knitter would really get less value for her work?-I do mean that, as we have always endeavoured to deal on that principle,-to sell on cash terms, and to take the very least we could for the article in cash.

2523. You mean that you take the smallest profit you can on your goods?-Yes. Suppose for instance, a woman comes in with a shawl, the market value of which is 20s. that is the price I should expect to get, and would get, for it.

2524. Do you mean that is the market value in Lerwick?-No; it is the market value in the south. Suppose the value put upon it were 1, I would only get 20s. for it in the south.

2525. Do you sell your goods to retail or wholesale dealers?-I sell them wherever I can get them sold, but the greater part of them are sold wholesale; that is, we sell them wholesale to retail dealers.

2526. You sell them to retail dealers, so that you have only one price, for your goods going south?-Yes.

2527. You heard Mr. Laurenson state that there was sometimes it difference in the price which he charged, according as the sale was one to dealer, or to a dealer who sold retail?-I understood Mr.

Laurenson to mean that he made a difference when he sold a shawl to a private customer, and when he sold a dozen or two to a retail dealer; and so do we.

2528. Is that the only difference you make in selling your goods?-Yes; and we think that is only fair the trade.

2529. I interrupted you when you were putting the case of a shawl worth 20s. What did you wish to say about that?-We fix our lowest rate of profits, and we give the people goods the same as if they had cash to lay down for them; and I can bring evidence to that effect if you want it.

2530. Do you mean that you fix your lowest rate of profit upon the hosiery goods you buy?-No; our lowest rate of profit on the goods we sell. A third way of explaining it is, that we treat as cash the goods which we buy. A shawl worth 20s. is reckoned by us as a 1 note would be reckoned,-with this difference, that if a man is laying down a l note we would give him 5 per cent. discount when he bought our goods. We consider that the trouble we have with the shawls, and the time we lie out of our money, is worth 5 per cent.

2531. Then what you say comes to this: that upon your hosiery goods you make no profit at all?-Not when they are once sold; that is to say, when they are once bought, the profit lies in the profit we have upon the goods. That is the only profit we have in the matter.

2532. But upon the hosiery, looked at by itself, you do not make any profit at all?-No; I say that I make none, and I swear to that most emphatically.

2533. In other words, the profit you make upon your purchases of hosiery is only the profit you make upon your sales of goods, which are given in return for the hosiery?-Yes; in short, it is two sales for one profit.

2534. That is to say, you are obliged to take the hosiery at the market price in the south, in order to get payment for your drapery and other goods?-With regard to that, I am not obliged to take them, further than that is the only thing in the country that reckoned as a kind of payment.

2535. It is the only thing which your purchasers have to give you for your goods?-That is my meaning exactly.

2536. You were going to offer me some evidence of that?-I can give evidence of it afterwards. My own employees can prove it, also women who have been in my employment, and also people who have been purchasing both for cash and goods.

2537. What can they prove?-They can prove that there is no difference between the two prices, and that the price which I charged is the lowest price I can fix.

2538. You are prepared to give evidence of this fact, that the price you allow to the seller of hosiery in Shetland is the price you get from the buyer in the south?-Yes, I can prove that. At least I can prove that it is so on the whole, by comparison, the invoiced prices of the goods sent south with the general prices of goods bought in the country. Here is a list of them [producing trade list].

2539. Is this list what you send to your purchasing customers?- Yes; and if you compare these prices with the prices of similar goods bought at the counter of my shop, you will find that there is no difference. The question was put to me, whether there would be a difference between the nominal value a customer would receive under the present system and if a cash system were introduced. I say there would be a real difference, but ultimately the merchant would be no loser. The difference would lie in this: that if I were compelled to buy goods for cash, that is, if I could not barter them, I would have no profit by giving the same rate that I now give. That, I think, is plain from what I have already stated.

Then I would require to buy them at a discount equivalent to the profit I now have on my goods, or else I could not carry on my trade; and that would be the same with whoever dealt in these articles. The cash price we can afford to give for Shetland goods here is just the value we pay for the goods that we give in exchange for them; and if we were to give more than that price, there would be an end of the trade.

2540. Do you not mean that it is the value you pay for the goods you give in exchange, plus your profit upon these goods?-I say the price we could afford to pay in cash is just the price we do pay cash, which is paid not to the knitter, but to the party in the south that we buy our goods from. Our goods cost us cash: that cash, thousands of pounds every year, would go into the hands of the knitters here; but in that case we would just give them that money, less the profit we have on the goods. That is speaking of the thing in a broad sense. There would be a real loss to the knitters in that case where they were fairly dealt with, because they could not get goods without a profit, and they in that case would have to put their hands into their pockets and give a few shillings more. For instance, suppose the case of a 20s. shawl: they get 20s. of real good value for it under the present system. If I were obliged to pay in cash, I suppose I could not give more than 16s. or 17s. for it; and if the individual wanted the very same thing from me which she can now get for the 20s., yet under the other system she would require to go to some other shop and purchase it, paying 3s. or 4s.

more for it than she now does.

2541. Is this what it comes to: that if a cash system were introduced, the knitter would be worse off, because the merchant would require to take two profits instead of one?-He would only have one profit to take.

2542. But if it were a cash system, would he have to take two profits?-No, he would not take two profits.

2543. If there were a cash system, would not the [Page 55] buyer of the hosiery from the knitter require to make a profit upon the hosiery?-Decidedly.

2544. And further, would not the seller of the goods to her require to have a profit upon these goods as well?-Certainly.

2545. Therefore there would be two profits?-Yes; there would be two profits taken from the knitter, but not by me.

2546. But I am putting the case of the knitter, and in that case the buyer of the hosiery might be a different person altogether?-That is my meaning.

2547. The knitter would have to sell her hosiery at such a price that the hosiery merchant would make a profit on his re-sale, while she would have to buy the goods at such a price that the dealer from whom she bought them would make something like the present profit which you make upon them?-Yes. Suppose we were to purchase for cash, and the cash system were introduced, in all probability the drapers would be simply drapers, and not hosiers at all; or they might withdraw their capital from the drapery business and embark it in the hosiery business altogether.

2548. Then what you mean to make out is, that at present you are making only one profit?-I do mean to make that out, for it is true; and I am very thankful when I can get it.

2549. How do you prove that there is only one profit at present?- By looking at the prices at which the goods are bought and sold.

2550. Let us take a single instance: you have put in a wholesale trade list for 1870?-Yes; we have later ones, but that will be sufficient for the purpose. There is no difference on them.

2551. Is that list issued at the beginning of the year?-I should like that others proved that, and not me. You can get it from my employees, or from my books, or from people who buy from me.

2552. In what way do you suggest that it should be shown? By this wholesale trade list, and by taking a variety of instances from your books in which prices have been paid for the articles that are mentioned here?-Yes.

2553. How would that be shown in your books?-By entries to the knitters whom we deal with.

2554. We could not find that by the entries in the work-book, because they show it only in detail?-I am not speaking of the work-book just now.

2555. It could only be shown by the sales?-Yes; and of course that list has been prepared from the prices which we pay for the goods.

2556. Do you mean the prices to dealers, or prices to people who sell them over the counter to you?-I mean the prices that we pay to the people for them, and which I pay over to them.

2557. But I think you said that when you buy the goods over the counter, no record is kept of these prices?-No; but the people that we buy them from would tell you the prices they get for them. In some instances, where debts have been paid by means of these goods, there may be entries in the books which will show the prices.

2558. Is there any entry in your books at all of your purchases of hosiery? I rather understood you to say that there was no such entry?-I think I said that when goods were presented for sale, there was note taken of what was given for them; but when goods come from the north isles or from people who send them to us from a distance, we enter them in the books.