Page 249 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

Newcastle's Twenty-first.
pigs. Butter casks, joinery, and other local products also were sent
out from the exporting centres.
Soon after the deputation to Jutland more direct relations were
established with the producers of Western America and British
Columbia. Canned fruits and canned fish formed the material basis,
" We have, so far, been entirely in the hands of agents when making
the purchases of these goods," reported the Committee in 1892.
Hence two C.W.S. representatives spent from two to three months
upon a comprehensive tour, incidentally being presented to President
Harrison at the White House. The travels of this deputation marked
the then furthest from home ; but, as we have seen, it was not by any
means the first visit to America, while it was followed by other
deputations to the Eastern States on account of new boot
machinery and purchases of leather. In June, 1894, a permanent
depot for purchasmg was established at Montreal, under the charge
of Mr. J. M. Percival, who had resigned from the C.W.S. Committee
in 1882 to become assistant to Mr. Gledhill at New York. At this
period butter, cheese, and other American products were shipped
from New York and Montreal ; and the Sydney depot in Australia,
begun in 1897, consigned an equally varied number of colonial
products.
These foreign enterprises were significant of a general mercantile
progress to which attention was drawn on two great occasions. The
first was provided by the "coming of age " of the Newcastle Branch.
This event was celebrated on December 17th and 21st, 1892, in the
congenial social atmosphere of an approaching Christmas-time.
St. George's HaU, Northumberland Road, Newcastle, was decorated
for a dinner to nearly a thousand guests on the earlier of these days,
with Mr. T. Tweddell in the chair, and Messrs. Mitchell, W. Maxwell,
T. Burt, M.P., and Dr. Spence Watson as the after-dinner speakers.
Dr. Watson, " as one of a nation of shopkeepers," and not ashamed
of it, refused to decry any trade movement; and this " was a trade
movement with a great ideal—the ideal of purif^'ing trade." Mr.
Tweddell made a notable speech. Briefly but effectively he reviewed
the past and the present of the branch, mourning for the colleagues
who had vanished with the years, rejoicing over the prosperity
attained, and acknowledging the efforts of the co-operative employees,
whether attached to the branch or engaged in the retail stores. One
factor in the success he selected for emphasis, " that principle of
interdependence, that mutuality of interest, that oneness of purpose
and aim which exists between the Wholesale Society and the retail
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