Second Shetland Truck System ReportGuthrie, William
History
Second Shetland Truck System Report
Guthrie, William
Labor law -- Truck system -- History -- England; Shetland (Scotland) -- History
2261. In that way there are two classes of customers?-Yes.
2262. Who are your principal correspondents in the south?-[The
witness shows the names in a book.] This is the day-book, which
we use exclusively for our transactions in hosiery with the south.
That book has just been finished. The last entry is 6th November
1871, and since then our entries as to hosiery sent south have gone
into our ordinary shop day-book: we have not provided a separate
book for them.
2263. You say that you have two classes of customers, wholesale
and retail?-Yes; we have wholesale customers, such as these
houses whose names I have pointed out to you. We also sell to
private persons, and of course we must make a difference. We
must sell to these wholesale houses at a much less figure, because
they have again to sell them perhaps to the very same retail
customers.
2264. At what price would that shawl of Mary Greig's be invoiced
to the south?-It is not away yet but I think I will be able to find
some of the same [Page 46] kind. It is very difficult to say what it
would be, because there is such a difference in the quality of the
worsted, and the price of the raw material differs a good deal. For
instance, here is black Pyrenees wool, costing about 8s. a pound,
and here is black mohair wool, 27s. a pound. It would cost us
roughly about 2s. an oz.; but that shawl, I should say, would be of
Pyrenees wool, costing about 8s. a pound. That [showing an entry
of a shawl invoiced to a house in London at 20s.] would be
something like it. I may mention that an account like that won't
be paid for eighteen months, and then it will be paid with a
discount of 5 per cent.
2265. Is that a fair specimen of the average sales of shawls?-Yes.
2266. And the average difference between the cost for materials
and workmanship?-Yes.
2267. Do you pay the freight?-The consignee pays the freight.
2268. Is this day-book a copy of your invoices which you send to
these houses?-Yes. In some cases we copy the invoices in a
letter-book, and then re-write them into this day-book. I can
produce the letter-book if you wish to see it.
2269. Does not that difference between the price marked in the
book and the price you have to pay for materials and workmanship
show something in the shape of profit?-Yes, undoubtedly.
2270. Then how do you reconcile that with your previous
statement, that there is really no profit upon your hosiery?-I don't
think I meant to say that there really was not a profit. What I
meant to say was, that, as a rule we would be very well pleased, on
an average of all our hosiery goods, just to get what we pay for
them. Of course, if you take out a special article here and there,
the rule might not hold good; but I think, on the whole, you will
find the result to be as I stated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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