4322. Why should there be a loss on weight if the meal is weighed out to you?-It is 32 lbs. to the quarter boll there, while in other places it is 35 lbs.
4323. Where is it 35 lbs?-In Lerwick, and, so far as I know, in Messrs. Hay's, at Dunrossness.
4324. Is the statement you are making just now, that you understand you get only 32 lbs. to the quarter boll at Grutness, while at other places you would get 35 lbs. to the quarter boll?- Yes, I make that statement; but I also say that Mr. Irvine said there was a little difference made in the price for that. He said, that when it was summed up, so many lispunds being put into the boll, there was a difference made on the price to cover the difference between 32 and 35 lbs. to the quarter boll; but I never knew what that difference was.
4325. What is the price charged at Grutness for quarter boll of 32 lbs. of meal?-It is not always one price.
4326. What is it just now?-I don't know. I only had one boll last year, and he could not tell me the price of it. I never knew the price of his meal until a neighbour who settled with him before me came back; and then I tried to enter the price of my meal according to what that neighbour said he had paid for it at settlement.
4327. Then, in point of fact, you don't know anything about the price of meal there?-He tells us the price of it when we settle.
4328. But you have had no settlement this year yet?-No.
4329. Had you a settlement last year, in the course of which you became acquainted with the price of meal?-Yes.
4330. Was it charged at the same rate throughout the year previous to your last settlement?-Yes; one year's meal is always one price.
4331. Is there never a variation in the price of meal during the year to which the settlement applies?-Not so far as I have known.