3551. Have you ever dealt in that way giving out worsted to knitters, and getting shawls knitted for yourself?-Only on a very small scale. I knitted more to others when I was young.
3552. But you have given out some knitting to others?-Yes, perhaps part of a shawl; so that I calculate the whole cost would be about that.
3553. Therefore, if you were giving out a shawl to knit, it would cost you 8s. 9d. for the material and the dressing, and you would pay 12s. for the knitting-in all, 20s. 9d.; and you could sell it to Mr. White in cash for 9s. 3d. of profit?-I would not call it all profit, because sometimes I have a good deal to do before I can get the worsted wrought as good as I would like to put it into Mr. White's shawls, and then I have to lie out of my money until I can get a party to take it in. Besides, if I were putting it out to knitter, I would have to stand the risk of getting it done properly to my mind. There might be some faults in the shawl; and if there was anything of that kind, there must be an allowance made for that. I am not saying that I ever did that, I am only speaking of how it could be done.
3554. You are speaking of what you could do, and of what you know can be done, from your experience in giving out part of your own work?-Yes.
3555. Do you know anything about the stocking [Page 81] business-the cheaper and coarser kind of Shetland goods?-No; I have not much acquaintance with that. I may say, that while I think in Lerwick it would be far better for the people if they could get money for their work, yet the country people are not requiring the money quite so much, as they need the goods at any rate; but if, as a rule, a money system were once established, and the people were all to get money for the work, I think those who purchase the work would find the profit of it as well as those who have to sell it.
3556. Have you ever considered why this system of paying in goods is kept up?-Yes.
3557. What do you suppose to be the reason for it?-If I had had it in my power, I would perhaps have done the very same as the merchants have done, because they have got the good of it.
3558. How have they got the good of it?-Because I think they must have had a profit on it.
3559. On the hosiery?-Not so much on the hosiery as on the goods. Reason teaches me that there must be a profit somewhere, or else it would not have been carried on to such an extent.
3560. I suppose the present system of payment induces the people who sell hosiery to the merchants, to buy their goods from them rather than from another?-Certainly it does; because, when I go in with a shawl to a merchant, I consider that I have to take the whole value of that shawl out in goods.