2066. Can they not get it?-Not very well.
2067. Why?-Because the merchants are not willing to give it.
2068. I thought you said the country people did not get money because they did not want it?-Well, sometimes there is no use of them getting it, and giving it back again to the merchant they are dealing with; they might just as well have the goods, because they have plenty of meal and other things to serve their ends, and they are not like us, who have to buy everything. We would be glad of the money sometimes to buy things that the merchant does not have, or to pay our rent with; but the country people have plenty of these things, and it is only goods they are wanting, and that is the reason why they take them.
2069. Then you have no reason to complain of this system of paying in goods?-We have to complain of it many a time.
2070. Why do you complain?-Because if we had money it could answer for other things, and in other ways than when we get goods; but we cannot get it.
2071. Is it a common subject of complaint in the country, that you cannot get money?-It is every one's complaint; and when we get articles, we are sorry to have to part with them for perhaps half-price.
2072. Do you sometimes sell the articles which you get at the shops?-Yes. I am in the habit of making very good things, and I am very sorry sometimes that I have to give them away at so low a price.
2073. But suppose you come into town and get goods in return for your knitting, have you sometimes to sell these goods again?-No; I have not done that.
2074. Is there anything more you wish to say?-No.
Lerwick, January 3, 1872, MARY ANN SINCLAIR, examined.