Page 195 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

At Northampton.
not only in a general sense but also in particular instances. First,
under Mr. J. W. Justham, who for many years has been the head
of the grocery business, and latterly under Mr. White, pubUc auditor
and accountant at the depot, a work of supervising struggling
societies has been carried on. Being in touch, the C.W.S. men have
been able to observe the signs of distress. Action has been taken
upon the merits of each case. Societies have been advised, helped,
and instructed at all points. The pohcy alwa3"S has been to make
the society financially successful without weakening local control
and self-reliance. Upon their little scale the problems have been
those which have confronted empires in their contact with small
nations, and along its purely democratic lines the C.W.S. may
claim to have found the true way to success. Two conspicuous
examples are the thriving societies at Swindon and Bournemouth;
one, the New Swindon Industrial Co-operative Society, and the
other the Parkstone and Bournemouth Co-operative Society.
To Swindon the C.W.S. representative (Mr. Edward Jackson) used
to go down night after night, acting as an unofficial secretary while
steadily working for C.W.S. aid to become superfluous. In these
and other successful instances the locahties were easily capable
of supporting independent societies; in other cases the difficulty
of attaining moderate efficiency, with stability, has furnished
arguments for county or district amalgamations. The Barry and
District Society in South Whales was supervised from the Cardiff
Depot (where Mr. Warren is the auditor), and " I always say " (said
the present secretary to the writer), " if your society's in trouble,
whatever you do, get under C.W.S. control; if anybody can, they'll
keep your chin above water."

Oiu" long stay in the West is Ukely to compel short visits to the
other centres where the C.W.S. has established depots. Besides
at Bristol and Cardiff a miniature of the London Branch premises
at Leman Street is to be found in Northampton. Co-operation
in the Southern and Eastern Midlands can show old-estabhshed
societies, and especially in the district of men's boot-making. Like
the societies in the small cloth- working towns of the Cotswolds,
these have sprung up in small but democratic centres of industry.
Several of these village associations are well over fifty years old.
There has been the same mingling of mfluences, also, as in the West.
William Cooper, from Rochdale, corresponded with the late Earl
Spencer, and at the gates of Althorp Park the Harleston Society
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