'14,014. Was 111/2d. the current price for wool last autumn?-I cannot say. That was what we got for it from Mr. Sutherland.' '14,015. Did anybody else offer to buy it from you?-We did not offer it to anybody else, because we thought he had a better right to it, as he was paying the rent. There were several people asking me for it, but I would not sell it to them.' '14,016. How much did they offer you for the wool?-We never came to any particular agreement about the price, because I would not consent to sell it to them at all.' '14,017. Did they not say anything about what they would give you?-They spoke of 1s.; but I thought it better to sell it for 111/2d. wholesale than to sell it to them for 1s., even although I had had power to do it. Besides, I thought Mr. Robertson had the best right to it.' '14,018. Had Mr. Robertson told you that he expected to get your wool?-I cannot say that he had.' '14,019. Had Mr. Sutherland told you that?-If I could have paid my debt he would not have asked it.' '14,020. But did Mr. Sutherland tell you that he expected to get your wool?-Sometimes he would ask me if I would give him the wool, and that I would be better to give it to him than to sell it to another.' '14,021. Even at a halfpenny less?-Yes.' This is probably a true enough picture of the transactions in regard to cattle, which in bad times are still commonly resorted to for the purpose of reducing large debts; but of which, in the late prosperous years, little has been heard. ________________________________ THE EXTENT OF INDEBTEDNESS. ADVANCES ARE MADE UPON AN ENGAGEMENT TO FISH. The evidence taken in Shetland does not confirm the statement made before this Commission in 1871, that 'the success of a merchant in Shetland consists in being able to accumulate such an amount of bad debts about him as will thirl the whole families in his neighbourhood, and then he succeeds,' etc. So far as this exaggerated statement has any truth, it may be said to mean that a merchant often avails himself of the power given him by his past advances, and by the hope of more, to secure both the fish and the shop custom of the fishermen in his neighbourhood; while fishermen so often need accommodation from the merchants, that even those who for the time are clear do not think it prudent to break off their connection with the merchant of the place from whom they have hitherto got supplies, and by whom they expect to be assisted in future bad years. But it does not mean, and probably was not intended to mean, that merchants ever deliberately sink a part of their capital in binding fishermen to them by the uqestionable bond of hopeless debt. The truth, so far as the highest class of merchants is concerned, seems to be fairly stated by Mr. Irvine, who says, with regard to the system of paying for fish by reference to the current price, that -