The system of barter which has been described does not extend to
any trades or handicrafts in which wages are paid to the workmen
or workwomen, with three exceptions, viz.: (1) the knitters who
knit the merchants' yarn; (2) the persons employed in curing fish,
boatbuilding, and some miscellaneous employments connected for
the most part with fishing; and (3) the kelp-gatherers. The days'
wages also of fishermen occasionally employed by proprietors or
merchants in agricultural work are sometimes carried into their
accounts. If it be assumed that legislation for the prevention of
truck is expedient, there can be little difficulty in applying to these
three classes any Act of Parliament that may be passed for that
end. And on the same assumption, there is as much reason for
protecting the persons engaged in these trades from being
compelled, by their own misfortune, weakness, or improvidence,
to take payment of their wages, or part of them, in goods, as for
giving such protection to workmen in other parts of the empire.