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truck system†

Atlantic Provinces

DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

a credit system under which a fisherman, logger, trapper, etc. gets his outfit and supplies for the season as an advance and is committed to trade only with the merchant extending the credit, all or most dealings being in kind.

Quotations

1849

And some of those men who work saw mills "grind the faces of the poor," by the truck system of payment, and by the two and three hundred per cent of profit they demand for necessaries. . . .

1872

The truck system is universal in the country [Nfld], and the fishermen, after paying all expenses of outfit and provisions for the season, have but little left in cash.

1918

But the trader knew that the truck system creates slippery, tricky men. . . .

1965

Strong men might contend against it but the "truck system " . . . became entrenched in Newfoundland and later extended itself to the lumbering and agricultural industries. . . .