Second Shetland Truck System ReportGuthrie, William
History
Second Shetland Truck System Report
Guthrie, William
Labor law -- Truck system -- History -- England; Shetland (Scotland) -- History
1926. Do you know that it is the practice to look out for visitors
in summer, or to send shawls to places such as hotels or
lodging-houses where they stay, in order to get buyers among
them?-I know that is a common thing, but I have never done it.
1927. Is that done because it is a more profitable way of disposing
of the goods than by selling them to the merchants?-I think that
is the reason.
1928. Or is it done because they get money from the visitors or
strangers?-I believe it is because they get money.
1929. Do you get as large a price from a visitor in money as you
get from a merchant in goods?-Yes.
1930. Do you know that from your own experience?-Yes.
1931. You said you had sold a shawl for 35s. to Mr. Sinclair: if
you had sold that shawl to a visitor, or to a lady in Lerwick, or to a
stranger in the summer time, would you have got 35s. for it?-I
would.
1932. Have you got that price for a shawl exactly the same?-Yes;
I have got it from Dr. Hamilton in Bressay, who was requiring it
for a lady.
1933. You sold another shawl for 28s. Could you have got as high
a price in money from a visitor for it as you got in goods from the
merchant?-Yes.
1934. You don't know that there are two prices for shawls,
according as they are paid in money or in goods?-I don't know
that, for I have not experienced it.
1935. Would you have given either of these two shawls you
mentioned for a lower price if you had got the whole price of it in
money?-No; I don't think [Page 38] I could have done it, for I
thought the shawls were worth the price I put upon them.
1936. Don't you think you could have got a higher price than 35s.
for that shawl from a visitor?-I don't think it.
1937. When you sold the shawl to Mr. Sinclair at that price, you
knew that he was buying it for the purpose of selling it again: was
the price which he gave you not something of a wholesale price?-
It was just the price I would have asked any one for it, because it
was just what I thought it was worth. The price I put upon it was
just sufficient to pay me for my worsted and my work.
1938. But Mr. Sinclair must make his profit off the shawl when he
purchased it in order to be re-sold, so that there may be two prices
in that way: do you know anything about that?-No; I don't know
anything about it.
1939. You thought you ought to get at least 35s. for the shawl, and
you were prepared to take as much more as you could get?-Yes.
Lerwick, January 3, 1872, Mrs. BARBARA BOLT, examined.
1940. You are the wife of William Bolt who lives in Lerwick?-
Yes.
1941. Are you in the habit of knitting Mr. Sinclair?-I knit for
myself, but I sell my work to Mr. Sinclair.
1942. You have no pass-book in that way of dealing?-No.
1943. Did you hear Margaret Ollason's evidence?-Yes.
1944. Do you knit the same kind of goods as she does?-No; I
generally knit veils and shawls to Mr. Sinclair.
1945. Do you deal in the same way as she has described?-Yes;
something like the same.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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