13,162. Do you sometimes make advances in money to the men in the course of the summer?-I do not make these advances. Mr. Bruce sometimes does so and when at settlement some of them are in debt, he gives them money in advance. It very seldom happens that a man, even when he is in debt at settlement, will not ask him for some shillings, or for £2 or £3, and he always gives it to them, although they have no money to get, but have been in his debt for some time.
13,163. Do the men run accounts at your shop at Grutness as they do with other merchants, for the purpose of supplying their families and of getting supplies for the fishing?-Yes; what they get is chiefly meal and hooks, and things of that kind. We do not do much in dry goods.
13,164. Except outfits for the fishermen?-Yes, except what we cannot avoid giving them.
13,165. At what time of the year are your transactions with the fishermen largest?-In summer. While the fishing is going on, our place is very busy.
13,166. Is that the season when the meal of the fishermen themselves is exhausted?-Yes. I have seen in bad years, when there was a poor crop in Shetland, that they had to get meal supplied to them so early as February; but for 2 or 3 years back the crops have been better, and most of the men have carried on till April or May without requiring any advances of that kind.
13,167. Then your principal sales of meal are in the summer time?-Yes. We seldom do anything in it after the crop has been got in, except perhaps in the case of a person who has had a very poor crop, or no crop at all, and then we may give him some.
13,168. The quantity of meal which each man gets is entered in the ledger account in your book at the time that he gets it?-Yes; we just keep one ledger account. Sometimes the meal is marked on slips of paper or in a little book when I am out of the way, but I try to enter all these things in the ledger daily.
13,169. But they are all entered in the ledger account, although there may be some little delay in entering them?-Yes; every person has all his dealings entered in one account.
13,170. I understand, from what I saw in the books last night, and from what you mentioned to me, that you don't fix the price of the meal when it is given out?-No. I don't know yet the current price of bear meal for this year.
13,171. At first you only enter the quantity that is given out?- Yes.