Page 199 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

CHAPTER XVII.

Constitutional and Mercantile.
Fees and Fares—Divisional Meetings—Balloon Street and Clock Alley—New-
castle Branch Developments—The New London Warehouses—Longton
and the Potteries—Greece and Dried Fruit—The Denia Depot—Gains and
Losses of the Time—Years 1885-90, and to 1912.
FINE poet of our day ended his life, tragically, because he
A could not hve by poetry. One wonders what a genius of Hke
kind would do if the alternative were a commission to write a
co-operative history. Provided the poet had no Shakespearian
disdain of the common people, and was able to perceive the creative
spirit using a trade in butter and sugar for vital ends, the hkelihood
is he would live and find solace in his work. He would become the
Arnold Bennett of a collective and persisting life. Yet, decidedly,
he would be a little discouraged by the quantity of opaque material,
neither to be cast aside nor easily made translucent. Occasionally
he would feel himself trying to build an aeroplane from old iron.
This fancy rather from
. . . arises considering the general
narrative than from any particular incident, but certainly it enters
with questions like those of committee's fees and fares, district
representation, and others which provoked keen and long con-
troversies in their time, and still compel a place in the history of
the Society.
In Chapter XIV. it was stated that the expenses of deputations
led in 18S5 to the appomtment of a special committee to consider
the fees and fares of the executive. This body of inquiry was not
puffed up by the figures of the C.W.S. annual sales, which were then
over fom' and a half milhons. It recommended that second-class
contract tickets should be obtained for the Directors, or thirds
where no seconds could be had; that the chairman of the Society
should receive a special payment of £40 a year, and the Newcastle
and London Branch chairmen £20 each, with £20 for each secretary
and £10 for each branch secretary; and that a sum of £2.000,
inclusive of such special payments, should be allowed to the Board
for all services, the Directors equitably to divide the paj-ment
lo5