9509. Then you would not make so much of them as some merchants do?-I don't know as to that. I don't expect that I would make anything.
9510. Did you not expect to drive a fair business at Seafield?- Hardly, upon that footing.
9511. Are you not satisfied with your first year's trial here?- Sometimes we must be doing, although we are not satisfied with everything that comes across us. Sometimes we must just endure it, and hope for better success in another year.
9512. How do you account for your shop business not being larger last year?-The men were in pretty good circumstances, and perhaps they found that they could get their things a little cheaper in Lerwick, and they ran accounts there. Of course I could not sell so cheap as they do in Lerwick, because I was buying most of my goods there. I got part of my goods from the south, and part from Mr. Leask.
9513. Did you hear Mr. Laurence Williamson's evidence?-Yes.
9514. Do you make the same bargain with your fishermen about boats and lines and other things as he described?-The captain of the boat got something extra from me.
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9515. But did you give as much off the boat hire as a premium to the men?-No; but of course it came to the same thing. I got £4 for the boat and lines. Laurence Williamson charged £6, and of course I charged £6 too, but I gave the lines free to the captain of the boat, and £1, 6s., which is equal to £2.
9516. Do any of the men in your experience buy their boats and lines?-They do in other places but not on this island, so far as I am aware.
9517. And that is always a debt against a boat's crew at starting?- Yes. In Dunrossness the crew buy their boat and lines, and I believe in Whalsay too.