Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 305

12,892. Are those masons and labourers who are employed by Mr.

Irvine?-Yes; on the Simbister estate. Of course they know the money is there, and they can draw it every fortnight if they like; but there is nothing to prevent them from leaving it until the end of the season, or whenever they wish to square up.

12,893. I suppose these men very often have accounts running at the same time?-Some of them have, and some have not; but that is quite a distinct matter. Their wages are always paid to them in cash.

12,894. But they often don't choose to ask for it?-They sometimes don't choose to ask for it till the end of the season.

12,895. Do you think they have a fear themselves that it might be spent if they took it sooner?-It is quite possible they have.

12,896. And they get what they want in the meantime at your shop, or anywhere else where they can have credit?-They may or they may not, as they like. That is entirely at their own option; but they can get supplies of cash from their foreman when they want them.

12,897. Is it the foreman who gives the money to them?-Yes.

We supply the foreman with cash when he wants it; and then he gives it to the men when they want it, and charges it against them.

12,898. You have a note of the men's time furnished [Page 320] to you every fortnight by the foreman. What is the purpose of that?-In order that the accounts may be regularly kept.

12,899. Who keeps the accounts?-We do.

12,900. Do you add up the men's time every fortnight, and make a note of the amount that is due to each?-Yes.

12,901. In that way, supposing a man has an account with you, you know whether he has been overdrawing it in goods or otherwise?-Yes; but he draws the cash from the foreman if he applies for it, and then the foreman gives us a note of the cash he has paid, and of the man's time for the fortnight.

12,902. But if the man takes out goods he settles with you?-Yes; or if he draws the money from the foreman, he pays the goods he has got from us with it.

12,903. If he has an account with you, in that case he will settle with you at once?-If he has an account with us he allows his account to go on, and the foreman pays him cash when he wants it When he gets cash from the foreman, it is at his own option to square his account with it or not, as he likes.

12,904. If the man is in your debt, do you still give him the cash?-Yes.

12,905. But you could retain it if there was any doubt about the men's solvency?-We always do hand them the cash.

12,906. You have never had occasion to retain it on account of a man's delay or refusal to pay his debt?-No.

12,907. Do you sometimes get stray lots of fish during the summer?-Not much. Sometimes, perhaps, we get a 'supper piltock.' The men take home a few fish for their own family use, Sometimes a man has large family, and another man has a small family, but they require to take home an equal number of fish to each of them; and then the man who does not require so much sells what he has got extra and that is called a supper piltock.

12,908. I suppose there is not much smuggling of fish going on here?-I don't think so; not in the summer time.

12,909. But if a man who is bound to fish wants a little ready money, does he not come to you with a lot of fish?-Not in the summer time; they would not be safe to do that. They would get their warning if they sold their fish past their proprietor in the summer time.

12,910. If it were known?-Yes, if it were known.

12,911. But don't they try to do it sometimes on the sly?-I don't know that they do.

12,912. You take them all for supper piltocks, if any are brought to you?-I suppose so.

12,913. Do you buy hosiery upon the system that is usual in the country?-No; we buy for cash.

12,914. Are you the only merchants in Shetland who do so?-I don't know; but it is very little hosiery we deal in. We find it very easy to buy, but very difficult to sell. We are not rightly in the market. We wish to carry on the hosiery trade on the same principle as the rest of our business, buying everything at a cash price, and giving cash for it if it is asked.

12,915. Do you find any unwillingness on the part of the knitters to take lower prices for their hosiery if they are to be paid for it in cash?-No, they are ready to sell for lower prices if they can get cash; and so they may, because sometimes girls come into our shop with cottons or flowers or other goods which they have brought from Lerwick, and ask us to exchange them.

12,916. Are you often asked to take flowers in that way?-Not often, because we refuse to do it, unless they are goods which have been bought from ourselves. In that case we exchange them; but if they are bought from other parties we won't take them. We find that the goods which are offered to us as having been received for hosiery are very much higher priced than what we would sell the goods at ourselves.

12,917. Have you been offered goods in that way lately?-Not lately, because we have refused to take them. The girls have told us that there is no use asking for cash in Lerwick, because they won't get it, and they don't ask us to take the goods, because they know we won't take them.

12,918. Do you remember any case in which you were offered goods that had been obtained for hosiery at a lower price than they were nominally sold at to them?-I have been offered goods at a lower price, certainly, but I could not mention any particular case.

12,919. Has that happened more than once?-It has happened very often.

12,920. About what amount of business are you doing in hosiery on that system?-Very little at present.

12,921. Is that because you don't get a sale for it?-Yes. As I said, we have not got into the market rightly.

12,922. Do you find it difficult to get the hosiery sold at a profit when you buy it on that system?-Yes.

12,923. Have you been obliged to sell it at something like the price which you paid for it?-Yes, we don't look for a profit upon hosiery.

12,924. Then why do you deal in it if you don't look for a profit?-Because it gives the people a chance of getting cash for it, and then we have a chance of getting the cash again.

12,925. I suppose that generally you do get the cash again?- Generally we do; but that is quite optional with the people themselves.

12,926. Do you pay for hosiery in goods at all?-If they ask for goods, of course we give them goods; but if they ask for cash they get it. That is the way in which we do all our business. We put the goods that we buy at cash prices, and we put the goods that we sell at cash prices, and it is a matter of indifference to us whether they ask goods or cash.

12,927. But, in point of fact, the hosiery may be paid for in goods, and no cash may pa.s.s if the party so chooses?-That may happen, but we don't do it as rule. As a rule, some other party buys the hosiery who knows better about it than I do, and hands the cash to the party from whom the hosiery is bought, and then they are at liberty to buy from us, or from any other person they like.

12,928. Are the eggs which you buy paid for on the same principle?-They are paid for in goods or cash, as the parties wish.

12,929. But the custom of the country is to pay for them in goods?-That is the custom of the country.

12,930. Do you generally find that the people who bring them are content to take the price, or prefer to take the price of them in goods?-They often take the price in goods, because they want them, but at the same time that is quite optional with themselves.

12,931. Are there not two prices for these things, whether they are paid in goods or cash?-Some parties have two prices, but we have not. We have only one price. We often prefer to pay the people in cash when they really want goods, because it saves a great deal of trouble in settling with them, and then they buy goods again.

12,932. Do you find that your cash transactions for goods are generally greater at one season of the year than at another?-Yes, very much greater. Our busy season for cash commences when the landlords and fishcurers commence to pay the men for their season's fis.h.i.+ng, and we continue to drive a large trade of that description until April.

12,933. Do you then find the men beginning to ask for credit more frequently?-Yes.

12,934. Do you think it would be better for the trade generally, as well as for the men, if they were paid more frequently, and the settlements were not so distant?-It would certainly be better for us if they were paid more frequently, because then we would be paid more frequently also.

12,935. Do you think it would be better for the men too, and that they would make a better bargain with their money, or do you think it is just as well that the money should be kept for them?-I consider that the money is kept up a great deal too long. For instance, if the fish-curers paid for the fish at the end of the fis.h.i.+ng season, that is, on 1st September, that might serve the men very well; but as it is with some parties, it is the 1st of April or the end of March before they are paid.

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12,936. Are the men sometimes in difficulties with regard to their supplies, in consequence of that?-No; because if they have anything to get, they can obtain supplies from the stores of the fish-merchants. They can get anything they like from them in goods. Perhaps that is the reason why the settlement is sometimes so long delayed, because it gives the men the chance of running a larger account than they would otherwise do and then they have less cash to get.

12,937. Have you any ground for that statement other than from mere inference?-No. There is one thing I may mention in connection with the fis.h.i.+ng, that when the men sell their fish green, the drying of them must be paid for to other parties; but suppose the men dried the fish themselves, there are often windy days, when they cannot be at the fis.h.i.+ng, and then they work at the drying of their own fish when they would have been doing nothing if they had been on-sh.o.r.e. In that way they can dry their fish for themselves very much cheaper than the fish-curer can dry them.

12,938. But can they do it as well? Do you think the fish cured by a fisherman himself command as good a market as those cured on a large scale by a curer?-We have had very little experience in that matter, because we don't buy fish in that way.

12,939. Do you cure any fish at all?-Yes; we cure the fish which we buy in the winter time wet.