6835. Are you told the price at the time you buy the meal?-Yes.
6836. Is the quality of the meal you get there as good as at Mr. Anderson's?-Yes, it is equally good. Meal and flour are just the same at the one place as at the other.
6837. Could you get better meal or flour anywhere else?-I don't know. We would, no doubt, get a different quality in Lerwick, if we were dealing there.
6838. Have you tried it there?-No.
6839. Are you obliged to take your provisions from the shop of the merchant you fish for?-I don't know about that. I have asked Mr. Smith at different times for a few shillings until the end of the twelvemonth.
6840. Have you got it?-Yes; I got it, but I never asked for any money to buy meal with, because he brought up stores there to supply his customers.
6842. But is it understood among the fishermen here that they ought to take their stores, or part of them, both provisions and clothing, from the merchant to whom they sell their fish?-That is generally the way in which they take there.
6842. Are they generally obliged to do that?-No; I don't think they are obliged to do it.
6843. Can they get cash from the merchants with which to buy their goods in other places?-I don't know. If the merchant has meal and other things which they are requiring, and can sell them as cheap and as good as they can get them at any other place then, of course, they don't need to ask money from him.
6844. But they generally do get their provisions from the merchant's shop, and nowhere else?-Yes.