Page 173 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

—,

The Manchester Ship Canal.
The C.W.S., as we have seen, were early supporters of the project, ^ and
J. T. W. Mitchell gave evidence before Parliamentary Committees
upon more than one occasion. In his History of the Manchester
Ship Canal Sir Bosdin T. Leech referred to the C.W.S. chairman as
" that stalwart champion of the canal." Describing an appearance
before a House of Lords Committee, the Ship Canal historian said:
" At first his quaint appearance, loud voice, and bluff manners
puzzled the committee," and his statement that he represented
50,000 co-operators, doing a business of £3,000,000 annually, caused
much surprise; but afterwards he received "marked attention"
as he gave figures in proof of the great sum that, he declared, the
canal would save to the Society. The Lords Committee, we are told,
concluded that Mitchell was " a typical Lancashire man, who had
little fear of dignitaries." The campaign for the canal did not attain
success until 1887, after nearly failing altogether early in that year.
Sir Bosdin T. Leech thus descibes the C.W.S. part in the final effort :
Nearly all the limited liability, trading, and co-operative societies of the
district took up shares, the Co-operative Wholesale Society heading the list
with shares to the amount of £20,000. It was very cheering that this important
society, after an interview with the Ship Canal directors, showed their
confidence by taking ordinary rather than preference shares. This was in
marked contrast to the tardy support given by many leading merchants and
capitalists of the district, who either held aloof entirely, or contributed the
smallest sum that decency would allow them to give.
The first chairman of the Ship Canal Company, the master boiler
maker, Daniel Adamson, whose energy and force it was that trans-
formed the canal from an idea to a practical project, himself attended
C.W.S. Quarterly Meetings as a member and a representative of the
Manchester and Salford Society. After Mr. Greening had unsuccess-
fully opposed the investing of C.W.S. money in 1885, on the ground
of the canal being purely a Manchester and district venture, it was
Mr. Adamson's appeal to the delegates not to let London capitahsts
" grow fat upon what should be food for the commonwealth," which
created enthusiasm for their investment. Prudence, however, went
hand in hand with zeal, and the £20,000 was taken from the reserve fund
so as not to figure in the balance sheet as an asset. " They were not
certain," said Mitchell at the March Quarterly Meeting, 1894, "what
would be the result of the Manchester Ship Canal, and therefore
they practically placed the investment in their books as nothing."
'Mr. George Hicks, in the Manchester City News of January 6th, 1894, stated
that J. T. W. Mitchell was one of the guests invited to dinner at Daniel Adamson's
in 1881, for the purpose of discussing and initiating a movement for a canal.
133