Page 114 - 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. —
led to feel that they ought to pay bonus or be ashamed of them-
selves. Opposition arose only through the gradual realisation of
the practical obstacles. The difficulty of discriminating between
the relative effects upon profits of distributive and productive
labour; the relative bonus value of the buyer and the postal clerk;
the liability of all labour to be robbed of bonus value by uncon-
trollable fluctuations of trade and markets; the just proportion of
bonus between the fev/ workers needed in a corn mill and the many
emplcyees of a printing works; the question of whether additional
C.W.S. profits were created by labour or by the adhesion of more
societies to the federation through the spread of co-operative
knowledge; the human weakness on the part of employer and
employed for reckonmg bonus as part of the contracted wages
these and other insurmountable difficulties finally produced the
repudiation of all profit sharing by the C.W.S.
Although so much was said by others, the employees took the
decision quietly. They cared much more about another matter, the
privilege of making purchases direct from the Wholesale Society.
A similar privilege was and still is enjoyed by workers for private
firms, and at the most amounts to less than colhers' free coal and the
railway servants' privilege tickets. Prior to 1871 the employees
were supplied individually, but early in that year the growing trade
was regulated by the formation of a United Employees' Association.
In 1874 the Quarterly Meeting instructed their Committee to inquire
as to alleged abuses of this privilege. The Committee reported in
December, 1874. They could not find that injury had resulted to
the C.W.S. " or any other society," and recommended the delegates
" to allow the association to continue." But such direct purchasing
was undoubtedly a privilege, and, the bonus question having put
societies into a mood for equaUty pure and unadulterated, the
Committee's advice was declined. While disclaiming any feeling in
the matter on the part of the Committee, Mr. Mitchell, as chairman,
pointed out that such a vote virtually meant discontinuing the
association ; but no friend of labour, high or low, appeared to defend
it, and the motion for expunging the Committee's recommendation
was carried unanimously.

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