2556. Do you mean the prices to dealers, or prices to people who sell them over the counter to you?-I mean the prices that we pay to the people for them, and which I pay over to them.
2557. But I think you said that when you buy the goods over the counter, no record is kept of these prices?-No; but the people that we buy them from would tell you the prices they get for them. In some instances, where debts have been paid by means of these goods, there may be entries in the books which will show the prices.
2558. Is there any entry in your books at all of your purchases of hosiery? I rather understood you to say that there was no such entry?-I think I said that when goods were presented for sale, there was note taken of what was given for them; but when goods come from the north isles or from people who send them to us from a distance, we enter them in the books.
2559. Are there dealers in the north isles who send goods to you?-Either dealers or private individuals may send us falls or various other things, and the entries with regard to them will show the prices given for them.
2560. These transactions will appear in the day-book?-I think so.
2561.You think Mr. Sandison, your bookkeeper, would be better able to point these out than you?-He would be better able to lay his hand on them; but sometimes we buy from dealers and pay cash for them, and same thing applies in that case which Mr. Laurenson stated, that we charge a small percentage on these goods, because we pay in cash for them.
2562. You put in the trade list, and you also put in a copy invoice, which you have shown to me, containing the prices at which you have sold the goods there mentioned?-Yes. It shows that there is a certain discount allowed; but that discount does not come off the profits charged on the hosiery, but off the sales of goods I give for them.
2563. Do you calculate that there is a larger profit upon hosiery goods which are made by your own knitters than on those which you buy and sell in the way you have described?-That is it question I have sometimes asked myself; and, taking the thing altogether, I don't think there is much difference.
2564. Don't you allow a little for the extra trouble and risk you have with your knitters?-There is a certain market price that we cannot get beyond. We must take the price in the market. Unless one merchant was able to monopolize the trade altogether, and force up the prices, he would not get more than the market price of the goods.
2565. You have said that the footing on which you settle with your knitters and with those who sell to you is, that the bargain between you is that they are to take goods?-That is the understanding. We do not make any formal bargain.