Page 226 - 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.

cloth from the oi'iginal wool. Financially, however, early results
were not satisfactory. The fii'st loss was explained as nominal;
but the subsequent deficits, up to 1890, amounted (with interest
and depreciation) to over £6,000. The trouble again was old stock.
In September, 1889, Mr. Boothroyd, the present manager, came to
Batlcy. Stocks were drastically reduced, yarns depreciated, and a
loss of £2,000 boldly piled up. The surgery had a healthy effect.
Recovery came slowly but surely, and a prospering business in time
became ready for the first of the three extensions, which since then
have practically built a new mill around the original gritstone
building. This complete restoration of the one-time productive
society, given up as a hopeless case in 1883, must remain an eloquent
argument for the federal method of co-operative production.
The burden of surplus produce at Batley caused the C.W.S.
Committee to develop the manufacture of ready-made clothing. For
more than one of the C.W.S. factories of this kind it is difficult to
find a precise beginning, each has just " growed." A sales depart-
ment, with a certain amount of altering and repairing attached,
was in existence at Manchester in September, 1888, when such
" manufacture " of ready-mades as existed was transferred to
Batley. By December, 1888, however, the manufacturing had
become a matter of 150 suits per week. The department at Batley
already was under separate management, and finally it was seen
that it must also have a separate location. In Yorkshire, at any
rate, Leeds is the only possible centre for this trade, and it was at
Harper Place, Kirkgate, Leeds, that the C.W.S. rented premises and
installed 60 machines. In 1892, durmg a dispute which connects
more particularly with the history of the Broughton Tailoring
Factorj'', very severe charges were made at the Manchester Quarterly
Meeting (March 12th) against the Leeds factory. The chairman of
the Leeds Trades Council, it was said, had written of the conditions
as deplorable, and "totally opposed to the requirements of the
Trades Council." The work, said an angry delegate, was done on the
sweating system by women and Jews, Mr. Bates, for the C.W.S.,
replied that the average weekly wage at the C.W.S. Leeds factory
was 22s. 41d., and, after inspecting the wages books of the factory,
Messrs. J. E. Whait and T. Buck, as president and secretary of the
Leeds Wholesale Clothiers Operatives' Union, furnished a fairly
complete refutation.
In 1894 the C.W.S. acquired land and buildings of its own at
Holbeck, Leeds, and the ready-made clothing factory removed
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