3328. But you know by the quality what they likely to have cost you?-Yes.
3329. Is the price at which veils are sold generally the same as that at which they are bought?-Yes. Veils which have been bought across the counter are charged at the same price that we consider we paid for them.
3330. Are many of the shawls dyed?-A good many. Some are dyed on account of being ill-coloured. Perhaps we don't discover, at the time when they are taken in over the counter, that they are ill-coloured; we only find that out afterwards, and then we have to dye them. Sometimes we dye shawls, not on account of them being ill-coloured, but because we require them of a particular colour.
3331. Is that done with fine shawls?-Both with fine and coarse.
3332. But not with haps?-Sometimes with haps too. We dye haps scarlet and black.
3333. Therefore there is a considerable quantity of the shawl goods which it is not possible to ticket at the time when they are bought, because they have afterwards to be dyed-Yes, a considerable quantity.
3334. And, in that case, the price is fixed afterwards, according to your own notions of the quality?-Yes.
3335. Who fixes the invoice price of shawls when they are sent out finally to the market?-Mr. Sinclair himself. He takes that department.
3336. Do you know whether, in doing so, he takes into account the market price in the south?-Although he makes up the articles, they pass through my hands in packing, and I see the tickets. They generally have a ticket on them, in order to guide the clerk in checking them and entering them into the book.
3337. But you don't know the principle on which Mr. Sinclair values these shawls when they are invoiced?-He just judges of them in the same manner as he did at first when taking them in over the counter.