Page 102 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

CHAPTER X.

The Entry into Production.
Tools and the Worker—Progress to 1872—The Crumpsall Works—The
Leicester Boot Works—The Durham Soap Works—Profit-sharing under
Collectivism—Employees' Purchases—Years 1872-74.
" "TN more respects than one that meeting was a moral triumph."
JL " At last a new step in co-operative progress is about to be
realised." " To all these proposals we say ' aye ' with all our heart."
In such terms the Co-operative News of November 23rd, 1872, dwelt
upon the previous week's quarterly meeting of the Wholesale Society.
The enthusiasm was aroused by the Committee proposing to enter
into manufacturing. At the meeting itseK the carrying of the first
of these recommendations was hailed "with loud cheers." " I felt
that we have passed the Rubicon," wrote the veteran disciple of
Owen, William Pare, in the News a fortnight later. " Although in
feeble health, just recovering from a painful illness, I cannot refrain
from expressing to you the high gratification I have felt.
This quarterly meeting will become famous in our annals."
To the older men the step meant an entkely hopeful attempt to
retrieve the past ; to the younger it seemed the beginning of a happy
future. Englishmen centuries before had attained a rude industrial
content. Workers owned their primitive tools, and in their self-
contained villages and districts, albeit under the shadow of feudal
lords, could order their lives much to their own liking. The changing
times that enlarged the world, and increased commerce, developed
the small master; nevertheless Defoe's accounts of his tours in
England show that even in the early eighteenth century workers
were not far removed from the old rough, simple order. And still
later, though cut ofi from the consumer, and dependent upon
powerful merchants and middlemen, the cottage worker had yet
some control of his industry, and a sense of freedom (perhaps
illusive) in arranging his own working time. It was the twin
revolutions of the eighteenth century, agricultural and industrial,
that stripped him of all but his labour, and pitted him, naked and
72