Page 110 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Story of the C.W.S. —

co-opera'tive footing." Briefly, he shared with Neale, Hughes, and
Morrison the idea of creating each worker an individual partner
in the Wholesale Society; and, to overcome the difficulty of the
C.W.S. constitution permitting no individual shareholders, these
advocates of copartnership eventually proposed to have each work-
shop registered as a separate organisation in membership with the
C.W.S. The different works would be financed mainly by the
Wholesale, who would also appoint the manager and retain general
control, but half the profits would go to the workers. Coming before
the delegates on December 20th, 1874, the Committee declined to
accept these proposals, and recommended a revised scheme of bonus
instead. Under the new official scheme the existing scale of bonus
was to apply to distributive workers only. For each of the productive
works separate plans were to be followed, the general idea being
to pay a bonus of 5 per cent on the profits made in each case,
and to add a further sum, varying from 5s. to 10s. in particular
works, for every £100 turned over. The bonus was to be conditional
upon good conduct, and, incidentally, time-books were to be
introduced and attendances checked.
By this time, however, the feeling of the delegates was turning
against bonus under any form. William Nuttall, who had encouraged
profit-sharing at first, and still was not wholly decided, found
many sound reasons to weigh against it and httle to be said in its
favour. Although a motion to aboHsh the bonus was lost, the
Committee's idea of developing it fared no better. Six months later
—on June 19th, 1875—the resulting deadlock was ended. The
abolition of bonus was moved by one of its first advocates, Henry
Whiley. " They found it a miserable failure," he said, " so far as
perceiving any effects in the management." John Hilton, secondmg,
confessed to "thirty years " of disappointment
In every case it had been a failure, and had never resulted in benefit to any
society, nor had it been of much advantage to the recipients.
The Newcastle and London Branches hesitated over total
abohtion, but the Manchester vote was decisive, and, except for a
further trial in later years under the Drapery Committee, bonus on
wages disappeared.
The question itself was not closed. During the following fifteen
years the asserted legitimacy of a bonus on wages remained as a kind
of Jacobite claim in Wholesale history, always hkely to inspire
risings in its favour. It was put forward much less by employees of
the Wholesale Society than by middle-class and professional men
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