5739. You supply the vessel entirely, and the men have nothing to supply except their fishing lines?-Yes; nothing except their fishing lines-2 lines, or 21/2, for hauling the fish with.
5740. Are these lines supplied by you as part of the outfit?-We have to put them on board the vessel, and then any of the men who require them can get them. Sometimes the men have lines of their own, and don't require to take them from us.
5741. I understand you were engaged at one time in the hosiery trade?-Yes.
5742. You used to buy the hosiery in the same way in which it is now bought in Lerwick?-Yes; always paid in goods, I gave that business up in 1870.
5743. Was there any profit made upon that trade?-No; the only profit I ever made by the hosiery was if we had any profit on the goods that we bartered for them. We never could realize the price, as a whole, which I had paid for the hosiery, and consequently we were obliged to give it up. We had very great difficulty in selling it.
5744. Did you sell your hosiery goods south?-I sent them south, and I had really to take anything they would give us for them.
5745. You do something in that way still, do you not?-Yes, occasionally. The principal thing we do is in purchasing goods from other merchants for sending them south when we get an order. Then we purchase what kinds of goods suit us.
5746. Do you buy them in Lerwick?-Yes, and in the country too.
5747. But you don't buy from the knitters yourself?-I don't buy from them. Sometimes they will make us buy them whether we will or not. We cannot get clear of them sometimes, but we don't want to buy them.
5748. Are the knitters anxious to get paid in money for their hosiery?-I don't know. Very likely they have been so long accustomed to getting goods for them, that they never think of asking such a thing as money.