Page 156 - 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.

cause of unsatisfactory returns. But some Heckmondwike boots
were beyond such rivalry. One pair, which used to be shown at
C.W.S. exhibitions, as made for Northern ironworkers, formed a
mass of steel and leather weighing 9lbs.
In the miscellany of this chapter we now come to one of the most
interesting business episodes of C.W.S. history. During the experi-
mental days before Samuel Ashworth's managership serious losses
were incurred by reckless tea buying. Ashworth, with a rare
Icnowledge of his own limitations, recommended that future buying
be entrusted to Mr. Woodin, of London. The latter, accordingly,
was visited in London by Abraham Greenwood, who was then
chairman of the C.W.S., and an existing letter dated June 17th,
1869, states Mr. Woodin's terms for acting, in the first place
experimentally. Mr. Crabtree, in 1877, writing in praise of this
course, confessed that originally he had disUked it, Mr. Woodin being
then unknown to him. But to the Lancashire men the friend of
Neale and Hughes was no stranger. He had joined the co-operative
movement of the Christian Socialists, and worked for the first Central
Agency. He had attacked the prevailing practices of adulteration
in tea before a Parliamentary committee, and, since the failure of the
Agency, as a tea merchant had supplied many societies, including
Rochdale, to the co-operators' entire satisfaction. The arrange-
ments made Avith him in 1869 were closely reconsidered and
" thoroughly endorsed "
by the Grocery Committee in 1875. Two
years later a special general committee meetmg again discussed
the business with Mr. Woodin. He had then embarked a capital of
£25,000, and was employing thirty workers, practically entirely in the
interests of the C.W.S. His gross profits, he said, amounted to about
|d. per pound. The Committee resolved to make no immediate
change. But a general and steady decline in tea prices produced
from 1878 an apparently serious falhng off in the C.W.S. tea trade.
New packet teas were coming into favour, and the competition of
tea men who gave " presents " was being felt. Men arose who knew
not Joseph Woodin; and strong criticisms were heard of the C.W.S.
being " in leading strings," and not employing its own accumulating
capital. The Newcastle Branch, which was already mixing teas
itself, took a forward part. Mr. AA^oodin, on his side, stated that
" he could not, after having occupied the position of a merchant so
long, alter his position with the Society" by becoming simply an
employed buyer. Hence, after a two hours' meeting in 1879, " con-
ducted \^ ith very good feeling, especially on the part of Mr. Woodin,"
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