Page 133 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

Difficulties of the Drapery Departments.
They
Dantzic Street had been made, at an outlay of about £15,000.
had advertised, also, for a general drapery manager.
Alterations
and extensions of the Balloon Street warehouse were abeady goin^'
forward. Difficulties over rights of light in respect to the Dantzic
Street building resulted in further purchases.
Simultaneously the
warehouses
in Newcastle were under construction.
Meanwhile,
For the
some trade was done, the busmess beginning in June, 1873.
last quarter of 1874 the drapery sales amounted to £6,000 for
Northumberland and Durham, and £15,000 for all the rest of England.
The Committee hoped for better results, since many productive
societies were " looking to us as the medium for the sale of
their produce." From early in 1874 a separate drapery (and boot
and shoe) sub-committee was in existence; and the very full and
detailed reports entered from week to week in their early minute
books show how diligently they applied themselves to their task.
On June 15th and 16th the new warehouse at Manchester was opened,
with all the pleasant pomp and circumstance of societies' buyers and
committee-men attending, inspecting, and dining with the Wholesale
Committee. It was announced that the Wholesale Society had
become sole agents for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Productive
Society—the substantial part of which defunct association still
exists in the C.W.S. Littleborough Flannel Mill—and agents also for
the Leeds Woollen Manufacturing Company. Other societies of the
kind were dealt with soon after. In the early months of 1876, with
the Waterloo and Thornton Street warehouse of the Newcastle
Branch in occupation, the prospects of the combined business were
hopeful. But the years were in the chilly autumn of the trade
cycle. Co-operative drapery and kindred departments, dealing
almost entirely with working people, are notoriously the first to feel
a trade depression, and the last to benefit from a revival. Notwith-
standing warnings from the Committee, the Manchester drapery
manager had increased his stocks steadily. He had deemed the
larger stock essential; while in some cases it was added to purely
out of sympathy with the difficulties of productive societies. Now,
with the Newcastle warehouse also holding goods, the Manchester
equipment proved excessive. Depreciation on the new buildings,
warranted by the prosperous times just ended, added to the burden.
For the sake of greater efficiency, the management was divided
between departmental heads. Joint working with the Scottish
Wholesale Society in regard to drapery goods was satisfactorily
arranged. Another step was to send out travellers. Although
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