15,919. Have you anything else to say?-Nothing.
Lerwick, January 30, 1872, JOHN WALKER, recalled.
15,920. You formerly gave evidence before the Commissioners under the Act of 1870, in Edinburgh?-I did.
15,921. Are there any points on which you wish to give further information?-I merely wish to reaffirm all that I previously stated. From what the people say, the only thing that seems to require explanation, is with regard to the value of the worsted or wool for the making of a shawl.
15,922. You refer to question 44,290: 'I know for a fact that the worsted of a shawl which sells at about 30s. is worth from 2s. to 3s. They nominally give the worker 9s. for working it, but if they get it in goods that will be about 4s.; and they get from 25s. to 30s. for it?'-Yes. The question was intended to apply to half square shawls and haps selling at from £1 to 30s., according to the verdancy of the animal that was buying it. It takes about sixteen hundreds to make a hap, and the worsted will be worth. from 2d. to 21/2d. It will take from sixteen to seventeen hundreds to make a half square fine shawl, and the worsted of it will be worth about 4d.; and these shawls are sold at from 18s. to 30s., according as customers can be got for them.
15,923. Are haps often sold at so high a price as 30s?-No, not haps; they are sold up to about £1. That has been my experience. I may say that I have been in shops, when the first question asked before a price was stated was, whether the article was for the person's self or for a stranger; that is to say, was it to be sold to a person in the country, or was it to go away outside, because in these cases they have two different prices. I have likewise been in shops when, if there were any of the knitting girls there selling shawls or other articles, the merchant would take very good care to state the price to his other customers in the lowest possible voice, and at the farthest possible distance from these girls; and I have been repeatedly told that they will occasionally put the price upon a piece of paper, so as not to let the knitters hear it. That I say in contradiction to the assertion which is made, that the merchants sell the hosiery articles at the same price as that at which they nominally buy them. Again, I want to point out that in most cases all the worsted that the hosiery merchants in Lerwick dealt in up to the last year was bought from the country merchants for goods, and therefore that even that nominal value did not represent the true value of the articles. I produce an account containing transactions amounting to £146; it is all balanced by goods, which were entirely worsted, up to £1, 3s. 10d. The only item of cash I find in the account is 15s. Lately, however, they have been obliged and are ready to buy the worsted for cash, because they cannot do without it, and the supply of worsted is decreasing.
15,924. You are speaking of Shetland worsted?-Yes. I may mention also that that estimate of the value of the worsted for a shawl was intended by me to embrace the Yorkshire worsted, or what they call the Pyrenees, although I don't suppose either the worsted or the wool ever saw the Pyrenees: it is made in Yorkshire.
15,925. Are you speaking, in both these cases of haps and of shawls, of articles made of Shetland worsted?-All the haps are made from Shetland worsted, the coarser worsted.
15,926. You said in that answer to which you have referred, 'They nominally give the worker 9s. for working it, but if they get it in goods that will be about 4s.:' is not that a little too strong?-I don't think it.
15,927. That assumes that the charge for the goods is about 100 per cent. above the cost price, or rather it assumes that it is 100 per cent. above the price at which the worker of the shawl ought to get these goods, which would not be the cost price, but the retail price?-No, I don't mean that. I mean to say that if these merchants were to go to the proper market, they could buy their goods at such a rate that they would be able to sell them at 100 per cent. profit; but I know that a great many of these merchants go to second-hand houses to buy. Whether it is for the object of getting long credits, or what it is, I don't know; but I know from the parties who come here that a great many of them are not first-class houses.