7517. Has the number of shops which exist in the district anything to do with that feeling?-How many shops are there, may I ask?
7518. That is what I want you to tell me. Do you think that if the shops were multiplied, and credit to be obtained at a greater number of shops that feeling would not exist to the same extent?- I would not be in favour of a multiplication of shops for the purpose of getting them the means of credit. I would be in favour of having free trade and giving no credit at all. If the number of shops were multiplied in the way of free trade, then a wholesome competition would be introduced, which I think would be an advantage. But you asked me a question about how many shops there are. Beginning at this part of the district, there is one at Hillswick, and then there is one at Brae, and another at Olnafirth.
7519. Is there a shop at Brae?-Yes; a very considerable place of business, one of the best in the country. Any other shops that may exist in the district are commonly called peerie (<i.e.> small) shops. They are very poor lads who have them, and what is more, they are generally selling to one or other of these three big shops.
7520. What do they sell to the large shops?-If I were one of the large shopkeepers, I would get a lad to open up a shop here and take fish for me or to sell to me, and I would send him down goods. The lad is apparently the merchant himself, but in reality he is selling for another.
7521. Do you know any case of that sort?-Yes; I have known it all my life.
7522. Do you know the individuals who are so connected with the larger shops?-Yes. If I go west to Stenness I find a man selling there, and if I ask him who he is selling for, he says, 'I am not the merchant, I am selling for so and so.' I go to another one who is apparently selling for himself, whereas it is well known that in reality he is not selling for himself, but for another party. It is no benefit for the population to have shops of that kind among them, because there is no competition at all.
7523. Do they all sell for the larger merchants?-Yes; they are just their menials or servants. I saw one of them examined yesterday.
7524. Do you know whether, in consequence of the cash payments here, tea or other goods pass from hand to hand among the people instead of money?-I am not aware of that. I only know about the purchases from the shops. I do not know what the people do with the articles after they get them.
7525. Is there any other way in which you think the present system is injurious, or any other point on which you desire to make any statement?-Besides being injurious in a moral point of view, the system is also injurious by leading the husband and wife to have separate accounts and separate transactions, and the children too. The house, instead of being united, is in reality divided against itself. Every member of the family has a separate interest; in that way mutual dependence is destroyed, and that affection which ought to subsist between children and parents has in a great measure disappeared from Shetland. A boy gets an account of his own when he is a mere child, or at least in boyhood, and as he grows up he thinks he has only himself to provide for. He has not that dependence or respect or affection for his parents which will lead him, when old age comes to them, to provide for them. I don't know any more prejudicial effect that any system can have upon the community than to see the rising generation growing up and their fathers neglected and despised, as they are in many cases here. That feeling is produced very much among the young people by the nature of their early training.
7526. Do you find that the parents are generally neglected by their children, and that there is a difficulty in enforcing their obligation to aliment their parents?-Yes; I find that very much, and any one who is connected with the country must see it as well.