5514. Can you tell me any articles that are cheaper in the one place than in the other?-Meal, for instance, is always higher in Mossbank than it is in Lerwick. Taking the meal from Mossbank at the retail price, there will be a difference of perhaps 8s. or 9s. per sack on that, and on buying a sack in Lerwick for cash. The sack is 280 lbs. weight, or 2 bolls, and that is a difference of 4s. or 4s. 6d. per boll.
5515. When did you try that?-I have tried it now for a good few years.
5516. Is that the difference if you buy it wholesale,-a sack at a time?-Yes.
5517. If you were buying a sack at Mr. Pole's store, how much would you pay for it?-I have never been under the necessity of buying a sack there. What meal I have bought at their shop has always been in small quantities: perhaps about a quarter boll weekly.
5518. What is the price of a quarter boll?-It is different prices: sometimes higher and sometimes lower.
5519. What did you pay for it last?-I have not had a quarter boll of meal from Mossbank this year at all, because last year we thought it too dear, and therefore we gave up taking it.
5520. Tell me any particular time when you bought meal at Mossbank, and found that at the same time, or within a short time after it or before it, you could have got the same meal in Lerwick for less money?-Not the past summer, but the summer before, I had meal from Mossbank, taking it in small portions as it was required, such as a quarter boll weekly; and at the same date, when I was getting these small portions, I got meal from Lerwick to my own house for about 10s. of difference on the sack,-only the meal that I bought from Lerwick was a whole sack, and ready money was given for it, while the meal bought from Mossbank was in small portions, and it was got on credit until the time of settlement.
5521. Do you think that difference was not accounted for by the difference between wholesale and retail prices?-For instance, would you not have got the two bolls at Mossbank, if you had bought that quantity there, as cheaply as you got them at Lerwick?-No; there would have been 5s. of difference if I had bought two bolls there.
5522. But there would be the expense of carrying the meal from Lerwick: that would be worth something?-That was 8d., and the shipping of it 2d.
5523. Is there any other article you think you have an advantage on in the same way?-Yes; there are different articles. For instance, lines are one principal thing we require, and for my sixth share, I would have nineteen lines in my bundle.