Page 146 - 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.
this quite unlimited sphere. Democracy, which is essential to
organisations of consumers, is decidedly a hindrance to speculative
profit making, and the C.W.S. Committee were members of a
democracy. They could not harden their hearts like commercial
bankers; they were bound to consider the opinions and the
sympathies of many. This affected them when it came to the
dilemma either of dishonouring cheques meant to pay wages and meet
difficulties which were always " temporary," or of adding to over-
drafts already large. They suffered by such bounden friendliness
in that minority of cases where the masters of sinking ships, rather
by weakness than intention, went behind their promises to the
C.W.S. by giving preferential securities to more exacting creditors.
In 1878-9 the C.W.S. was not twenty years old, and its turnover
showed the first of the only two decreases in fifty years. It fell
off shghtly from a total of httle more than two and a half millions.
The sums we have named need to be seen in proportion to these
facts. Seventy or eighty thousand pounds in this relation would
be equivalent to three-quarters of a miUion nowadays. However,
we need not make too much of the matter. If we add the losses
of Mr. Walter Morrison to those of Hughes, Neale, Ludlow, and
others of their circle, they would go far toward matching the C.W.S.
total. Again, as it was pointed out in the Committee's favour, the
collieries worked by " practical miners " produced more disastrous
results. Many an unsuccessful strike has been more costly than
the three groups of losses taken together. It was quite worth the
amount to the C.W.S. to have a course made clear for the future.
Failures were less dangerous than successes might have proved.
The blessing was only disguised. Moreover, as J. T. W. Mitchell
(who of all men had least need of co-operators' absolution), in his
large, good-hearted way, reminded the Quarterly Meetings—to err
is human; to forgive divine.

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