Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 75

2369. Do you keep sugar?-No; I do not sell sugar now.

2370. Besides that trade, you are employed in the purchase and sale of hosiery?-I am.

2371. Your hosiery is obtained in two ways: either women that knit upon your employment or from parties who come with their own goods and sell them to you?-They are princ.i.p.ally the latter.

2372. How many women can you state, have been employed on an average during the last three years in knitting for you with worsted supplied by you?-I never was at the pains to reckon exactly the number of knitters I had. I should suppose there would be on an average from 80 to 100-sometimes more and sometimes fewer; but that is only a guess. I have books here which will show it exactly.

2373. Are those women who knit for you paid generally in money, or in goods; or is there an account between you?-There is always an account kept with the knitters, and they are paid in cash or in goods-princ.i.p.ally in goods; but there is no objection to pay them in cash when they want it.

2374. Are your people instructed to pay in cash when cash is asked for?-I never gave any direct instructions to that effect; but occasionally they may pay in cash when they know a customer well. If it is advances that are wanted, they would require to know the character of the customer to whom the advances are made.

2375. Do you mean to say that the question whether a request for an advance is to be granted or not, depends upon the state of the customer's account at that time?-Exactly, or mostly that.

2376. Then, if a knitter has a considerable amount at her credit, and wants money, is it the rule in your shop that she will get an advance?-She will get an advance in money when she has it to get; but we don't call that an advance,-it is a debt; and it has been generally understood, as has been often stated, that it is goods which they are to get for their work. That rule, however, has often been departed from-more particularly lately.

2377. You say there is an understanding they are to be paid in goods, but that that understanding has been departed from?-Yes, often. But the last question put to me was a double one. With regard to the other part of it,-as to them having a large amount at their credit,-the fact is, that they seldom have anything at their credit, but when the goods come in, they have to be entered to their credit, to make up for advances which they received when they were knitting. That is the rule, but there are several exceptions to it.

2378. As a general rule, has a knitter got more goods from you than the value of her work?-Yes; she generally has got quite equal to the value of it, and frequently more.

2379. You say that she has either got more goods than the value of the hosiery which she brings, or she has got at least up to the value of the work returned?-Yes; generally.

2380. Have you formed any idea as to whether the kind of goods which you supply to your knitters consists to a greater extent of articles of ordinary dress, such as cotton, and dress stuffs, and boots and shoes, or of millinery, and the finer articles which you deal in?-They consist princ.i.p.ally of strong usable wearing apparel, boots and shoes, and other things that are generally required for domestic purposes or for their own wear.

2381. You say that you have about 80 or 100 women engaged knitting to you?-I only guessed that. I think there must be more.

2382. Is the system of dealing with the whole of these, that an account is kept?-Yes.

2383. Is that account kept in a pa.s.s-book with the knitter?-Not always. When they want a pa.s.s-book, they get it. You can see from that book [producing work-book], who have pa.s.s-books and who have not.

2384. Has every knitter a separate page in your work-ledger?- Yes; the book speaks for itself.

2385. It may be convenient for both of us if you take the case of Jemima Sandison just now, whose pa.s.sbook I have got here. Is that pa.s.s-book an exact copy of the page in her name in your ledger?-Yes; the entries in both are made, at the same time. She brings the pa.s.s-book when she wants any article and the entry is made in the work-book at the same time as in the [Page 50]

pa.s.s-book. Unless there is any error in summation or date, the one should be an exact transcript of the other.

2386. Is it generally known by you or your shopkeeper whether there is a sum at the credit of the worker, or whether the account stands the other way?-After they have gone on for a while, and when they come in with any work, of course we square up the books and examine them.

2387. In adding up Jemima Sandison's book, I find from November 11, 1870, to December 28, 1871, the amount of goods and cash supplied to her was 3, 5s. 3d.?-Yes; but there is something I may explain with regard to this particular case. All the work she has done does not appear here. If she wants to get wool or any other article, she can get it out of the shop on bringing goods for it, and that does not appear in the book. She sells the goods to us when she has made them, and gets either cash or goods for them according she wishes. That book does not show all our transactions with her.

2388. Some of them may be ready-money transactions?-Not ready-money, but private transactions, that do not appear in the books at all, because the book only contains the goods she gets from us, and for which she returns knitted work. She is paid for the knitting of these goods, and not for the whole value.

2389. How do you distinguish, in that case, between the goods that go into the pa.s.s-book and those which she gets, but which do not enter the pa.s.s-book?-There is no occasion to distinguish between them at all, because they are separate transactions.

2390. When she comes with a separate article to sell, how do you do?-Suppose a time when trade is dull, as Mr. Laurenson has explained, and we are not making falls (which is the princ.i.p.al thing this woman makes for us), we try to keep her in work by giving her out material, and she makes anything else with it that she likes. We do not enter that in the book at all. She makes it for herself. We may buy it from her, or she may go and sell it to another if she likes; or she, may have a private order for it, and sell it in that way. These transactions do not appear in the book.

2391. But when she comes to you, and you do happen to buy an article in that way from her, is she paid for it to a certain extent in goods?-Yes, if she wants them.

2392. These goods are not entered in the day-book?-Of course not.

2393. You just deliver there to her across the counter, in the same way as you would deliver them to any party who came in to make a ready-money transaction?-Yes.

2394. If she does not want exactly the value of goods which will pay for her shawl, or for any other article which she may have brought to you, do you enter the balance in any book?-No; we do not enter it in the book, except in the line-book. We give her a receipt for the balance, and we give her the balance in cash or in goods at any other time.

2395. If she wishes money for the balance, is it usual thing in your trade to pay it in money?-The fact is that we never refused her money when she asked it. She stated that in her evidence.

2396. That may have been the case with this particular woman, but is it the fact that any knitter who wants a balance of that kind in money is able to get it?-If she has bargained to take goods, and if the price we put on the article be such that we cannot give money on it without making a loss by it, then we don't give the money: we stick to the bargain. If the bargain has been such that it would allow us any little profit on it, then we give it all in money, if they want it in that way.

2397. The question whether she is to get money or goods for the balance, depends on the bargain which the woman has made?- Yes; decidedly.

2398. Can you tell me any case in which you have paid the whole price for hosiery goods in money?-I could tell you many cases of that kind, For instance, I could mention the case of Miss Gifford.

2399. What was the transaction you had with her?-My last transaction with her-indeed I have only had one for a long time-was for a shawl which bought from her; and paid all cash for it.

2400. When was that?-About three months ago.

2401. What was the price?-The price of the shawl was 4, and I gave her four 1 notes for it.

2402. Was not that a very valuable shawl?-Yes but I would rather have taken it and paid money for it, than I would have given barter for a thing that might lie on my hands until the moths eat it.

2403. The quality of the thing was so good, that you wanted to have it at any price?-Yes, and I could charge a small profit on it; but I cannot do that on the great bulk of the things I get.

2404. Did you pay for that in cash because it was an exceptional article?-I paid for it in cash because I wanted it. I would do the same for anything I wanted; but when goods are forced upon us, and goods asked for them, we cannot be expected to put our hands into the till and pay out cash for them.

2405. Are goods forced upon you?-Yes.

2406. Have you no option but to buy them?-No. That is not the meaning of my words. I do not mean that we are forced to buy them, in that sense. I mean, that people come in importuning us to buy goods which we do not want.

2407. You do buy them, however?-Sometimes, and sometimes not.

2408. Is it in consequence of the importunity of your customers that you buy them?-Sometimes, and sometimes not.

2409. But you say that sometimes you are forced by the importunity of your customers to buy their goods?-Yes; we may be induced to do it by an importunate woman.

2410. And when the importunity is so great that you are constrained to buy them, are these the cases in which you pay in goods?-No; the people often don't want the cash. They don't ask for it. They come to us with the general understanding that the, trade is done in goods-I mean in barter.

2411. Do you say the general understanding is that the payment is to be in goods, and also that you have sometimes to buy goods because you are importuned to do so?-Decidedly. I say I do buy them sometimes, because I cannot get rid of the customer otherwise, but these are exceptional cases.

2412. Is it because of the importunity, or because it is the general custom, that the payment is in goods?-That has been a tradition from time immemorial.

2413. But you have a.s.signed the fact of paying in goods to both of these causes, and I wish to know which of them it is that you really refer it to?-It is sometimes the one and sometimes the other.

2414. But you are not obliged to buy hosiery and pay with goods unless you like?-Not at all; nor for money either. What I stated was, that I would rather pay in cash for a good article which I can sell again, than purchase a thing on barter that I have a great risk in selling. That is the whole import and purpose of what I said.

2415. You instanced one transaction,-that which you had with Elizabeth Gifford?-Yes; and there is another girl, Catherine Brown, who is in Leith just now, from whom I bought a great number of shawls, and paid her cash down for them.

2416. Was that long ago?-It has gone over a number of years.

2417. Was your reason for paying the cash the same in that case: because the articles which you got from her were good?-Yes; they were prime articles.