2271. Do you make any distinction, in your statement with regard to profits, between those cases where an article has been made for you and those in which it has been purchased by you?-I think, as a rule, the articles which we purchase or exchange over the counter are generally sold by us just for what we have paid for them. The others we have a good deal more trouble about. The raw material has to be ordered, and the money paid for it pretty soon; and then it has to be given out, and these accounts kept, and the articles have to be dressed. In fact we have three or four times the trouble about articles of that description which we have with regard to articles that we buy in exchange.
2272. Do you make that profit upon the goods made to your order, by charging a higher price to your customer in the south, or by paying a smaller rate to the women who knit for you?-The rate we pay the work-women here depends on what the other dealers in town are paying. I suppose we all pay much about the same rates.
2273. But I don't see how the same articles if made by one of your own work-women, can be charged at a different price to your customer in the south from what it would be if it were purchased by you across the counter?-As I have said, we have much more trouble with it.
2274. But the customer in the south fixes the price; and you cannot give articles that are really the same in quality at a different price, in consequence of the way in which they have come into your hands?-No; but on some articles we must have less profit than on others, and we must just make the one balance the other.
2275. But your customer would object to take two identical articles at different prices?-No doubt he would; but such articles as these black shawls we never buy over the counter. In fact I don't think I ever did buy one in that way; they are always made to order. We bring in the raw material, and the women knit it up. The material of which these black shawls are made is not Shetland wool. The women don't have it. Of course they could get it if they chose to buy it in the shops: we would sell it to them just the same as anything else.
2276. Do you purchase stockings?-Yes.
2277. You don't have them made?-No; they are all bought over the counter.
2278. Are they generally paid for in goods?-Yes; I may say universally.
2279. Are they made by the people in the country rather than by those in Lerwick?-There are very few made in Lerwick; all the hosiery proper is made in the country districts. When I speak of the hosiery proper, I mean stockings.
2280. What do you call the other kind?-Under-clothing. Articles such as shawls, veils, neckties, and the like, we call fancy work. Then there is under-clothing-men's under shirts, gentlemen's drawers, ladies sleeve, ladies' under-dresses, ladies' drawers ladies' spencers, which are worn under the clothing.