Page 141 - 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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More Unfortunates.

Wholesale amounted to £14,000 in 1878, and to nearly
£2(),()(Mt in
1879. Meanwhile, the small London societies, that continued to
rise and fall, received a consistently considerate treatment.
In September, 1878, a mysterious request came from a compara-
tively small Lancashire society for a deputation from the Wholesale
to visit them. When Mitchell and Greenwood went down, expecting
some moving appeal for help, they were called upon instead for
assurances as to the financial stability of the C.W.S. Luckily for the
entire co-operative movement, the chairman and the bank manager
were in a position to leave their interrogators "perfectly satisfied."
The local committee decided that " they would not press to have
their shares transferred."
In 1876 the conduct of the Wholesale Society towards the
Industrial Bank and the Ouseburn Works formed the subject of a
special conference held in Newcastle on November 25th. Fifty
representatives attended from twenty-seven societies. After some
plain speaking by Mitchell it was unanimously decided :
That this meeting exonerates the directors of the Wholesale Society from
any blame in connection with the Industrial Bank and the Ouseburn Engine
Works, and considers their action just and right.
But the Committee now had other problems to face. Among the
debtors who returned unsatisfactory replies to requests for the
reduction of overdrafts were the Rochdale, Withnell, and Marron
Bank paper companies, ^ the Union Land and Buildhig Company, ^ t lie
Main Coal and Cannel Company, the Spring Vale Colliery and
Works, the Eccleshill Colliery, and the United Coal Company owning
the Bugle Horn Colliery. To give a detailed history of the tirst four
or five of these unfortunates would be tedious. They all came to the
C.W.S. by the same road, and they all had a share in the £32,(MX)
wiped out by the federation in 1881. In each case the facts of their
rise and fall have been patiently set forth by Mr. Ben Jones in his
encyclopoedic Co-operative Production. The colliery companies,
however, have a special claim upon our attention.
'An account was opened also, in 1876, with the Union Paper Works, of RocluUle.
This venture also failed, but not until 1894. The property stood m the balance slieot
at £100,000, but the amount realised by the assct.s wti^ msufflcient to cover a nr».t
mortgage of £16,120. The C.W.S. had lent £12,366 on a second mortsai^o. evor>
penny of which was lost. The Society had received in "^tcrest £8,373 BincolSTb
At the Quarterly Meeting of June. 1894, the acoouuL was described from the I'l"tf. r
" were not preparmt.
as a blessed legacy for the present directors," who, however,
such legacies for their successors."
= The C.W.S. Longsight Works stands on land that came to the ^lolesale Society
through this company, the names of whose promoters are etiJl borne by streets In the
locality.
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