Second Shetland Truck System ReportGuthrie, William
History
Second Shetland Truck System Report
Guthrie, William
Labor law -- Truck system -- History -- England; Shetland (Scotland) -- History
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.
2559. Are there dealers in the north isles who send goods to
you?-Either dealers or private individuals may send us falls or
various other things, and the entries with regard to them will show
the prices given for them.
2560. These transactions will appear in the day-book?-I think so.
2561.You think Mr. Sandison, your bookkeeper, would be better
able to point these out than you?-He would be better able to lay
his hand on them; but sometimes we buy from dealers and pay
cash for them, and same thing applies in that case which Mr.
Laurenson stated, that we charge a small percentage on these
goods, because we pay in cash for them.
2562. You put in the trade list, and you also put in a copy invoice,
which you have shown to me, containing the prices at which you
have sold the goods there mentioned?-Yes. It shows that there is
a certain discount allowed; but that discount does not come off the
profits charged on the hosiery, but off the sales of goods I give for
them.
2563. Do you calculate that there is a larger profit upon hosiery
goods which are made by your own knitters than on those which
you buy and sell in the way you have described?-That is it
question I have sometimes asked myself; and, taking the thing
altogether, I don't think there is much difference.
2564. Don't you allow a little for the extra trouble and risk you
have with your knitters?-There is a certain market price that we
cannot get beyond. We must take the price in the market. Unless
one merchant was able to monopolize the trade altogether, and
force up the prices, he would not get more than the market price of
the goods.
2565. You have said that the footing on which you settle with your
knitters and with those who sell to you is, that the bargain between
you is that they are to take goods?-That is the understanding. We
do not make any formal bargain.
2566. Is that bargain made with the knitters whom you employ at
the time when you give out the wool?-I have said already that we
make no formal bargain, but it is generally understood that we pay
them in kind. They know that, and consequently they very seldom
ask for anything else. But we don't stick entirely to that.
2567. You sometimes give them cash?-Yes.
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