Page 169 - 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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After Thirty Years.
competition went on until the end of 1885; and the adverse figures
rose to over a thousand pounds per quarter. While cheerfully
willing to break the ring, delegates began to despair of any profits
out of shipping. It was styled " the picturesque department."
But the C.W.S. knew its own strength. If it had to compete for
most exports and some imports, on the other hand the great bulk
of the inward traffic from Hamburg was its own, and the benefit of
cheap freights that was lost in filtering through the retail private
trader was received directly by the societies through their federation.
It was also urged that the recorded losses were to be balanced, to
some extent, by fixed interest charges and by an unvarying
depreciation. However, the end was in sight. An appeal to arrange
rates for Goole was made from the other side, and, with the railway
company affected helping to mediate, terms were made for a peace
honourable to the C.W.S.
There is no need to follow in detail the history of the east coast
shipping during the ensuing years. New vessels—the Progress,
Federation, Equity, Liberty, and Unity II.—were built for the traffic,
their sizes ranging up to 1,200 tons. The profits, which had come
substantially into being at the close of the rate war, continued, with
fluctuations, later. The ships were insured in the C.W.S. own
insurance department, with satisfactory results. Thus, for twenty
years more, the business was continued in an ordinary way: the
vessels made their passages, contending with adverse weather at sea,
and with river ice during the hard winters of the earlier nineties.
They grounded from time to time in the shallow and treacherous
Ouse; they were interrupted by labour disputes ; and now and then
in slack seasons they were chartered by the C.W.S. to other owners
all in the regular course of navigating both the tides of the sea and
the tides of commerce. Meanwhile events gathered for a change.
The C.W.S. imports from Hamburg and Calais fell off. New and
larger sources of supply for the Society were opened in other parts
of the world; and the traffic became chiefly general. At the same
time, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, following
the modern trend, determined practically to extend its lines from
Goole and Hull to the Continent. Powers were obtained by the
company from Parliament, and the C.W.S. had the option either of
seUing the Goole and Hamburg boats to the company or meeting an
unequal competition. The former course was taken. Satisfactory
terms were arranged, with certain guarantees on both sides, and
in 1906 the Unity, Equity, and Liberty, with offices, stores, and
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