Page 127 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

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Butter—and Blarney,
a footnote to the incident, Holyoake, as editing the report, said
there was no doubt of Mr. MitcheU's ability to put the case
if
required, but it was not necessary, and the speaker "won the
respect of Congress by the good sense of declining to go into the
matter." The silent acquiescence in the new chairmanship
indicated a selection too natural to be noteworthy.
The Co-operative News of May 23rd, 1874, neatly summarised
the purpose of the Wholesale Society, which was
:
To bring the producer and the consumer together, to so organise labour as
to produce for known wants, and to serve the consumer as nearly as possible
at cost price on condition that he finds the necessary capital in the first instead
of the last instance
. . . it is really a find, and not an effort to him.
Steps in this direction during the years 1873-77 were made by
the establishment of purchasing centres in Ireland extra to the
three already existing. The present Liverpool buying and for-
warding centre was also instituted, and, wide afield, an office was
opened in New York. By this time the early and occasional sub-
division of the General Committee into "Saleable Stock," "Goods,"
" Building," or other sub-committees had ended. There was a
regular apportionment of the work between Finance, Grocery, and
Drapery Committees, with the General Committee exercising ultimate
authority, much as at present. A separate Committee for the
productive works came later. From March, 1874, quarterly joint
meetings of the buyers for the two Wholesale Societies—English
and Scottish—were held, and much valuable action resulted.

During its first ten years the Wholesale Society grew fat on
butter. This was the most important single article in its commerce,
accounting for about one-third of the annual sales. The business
was done in the summer and autumn. In 1869, for example, the
April quarter's supplies were 806 firkins, compared with 10,430
for the July quarter. Only a strong liking for butter could have
induced appreciation of the highly-salted, half-rancid, five-months-
old substance of February or March. Ireland was the soru-ce of
supply, with France and Holland just beginning to find the new
market. Danish butter was unknown. Mr. W. L. Stokes, in the
C.W.S. Annual, has quoted a British Consul at Copenhagen who
-MTote in the seventies that he could get no decent butter to eat
The successive openings of the Tipperary, Eaimallock, Limerick.
Armagh (butter and eggs), Waterford, and Tralee buying offices
through the years 1866-74 proved the alertness of the Wholesale
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