Page 253 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

Victories for Unity.
outside capitalists." Mitchell, Swann, and Hibbert joined with
Messrs. Shillito, Tweddell, and Moorhouse in a powerful defence
of a strong and undivided fund, and such was the effect of this united
stand that over the whole of the meetings the recommendation of
the Committee was carried by 707 votes to 175, while the Heck-
mondwike resolution secured only 145 votes a,gainst 825. . . .
This latter result owed something to a practical consideration. A
pertinent question put at one of the meetings was that if the bulk
of the Insurance Fund was allotted, would the risks, when they
outgrew the balance, be allotted also 1 Yet, on the whole, the
victory of the Committee was a triumph for the communal principle.
Remembermg the able advocacy and full consideration of the
proposal for division, and its obvious temptations to societies, one
may record its heavy defeat as the best evidence that had yet
appeared of the strength and unity of the federation.
At the end of 1893 a simOar action was taken in order to reduce
the amounts set aside for depreciation. The Newcastle Society took
the lead in moving that depreciation should be upon present rather
The question was adjourned for the Committee
than original values .
to prepare a statement, which finally came before the meetings of
December, 1894. It was accompanied by a number of resolutions
from societies, but no special meeting was needed to dispose of them.
The only one Avhich secured fair support was from Macclesfield,
and this at Manchester alone. It sought to prevent depreciation
applying mechanically to buildings " already wiped off." The
Committee's view was that there had been too little rather than too
much depreciation, as it then amounted to no more than from 23
to 43 per cent of the various forms of capital expenditure, and this
view easily prevailed. . . . The time of these December meetings
had alread}^ been occupied in defeating a proposal from West Stanley
and many other northern societies, for the Manchester, NcAvcastle,
and London district societies to act separately in the election of the
C.W.S. Committee. This had been rejected by 633 votes to 374.
Meanwhile, a Norwich resolution for a C.W.S. Productive Committee
separately elected had been defeated in the previous year without
a count.
One may group all these movements and proposals together,
because in each of them one can discern a spirit akin to that of the
democrats of 1860 in American politics, a spirit of consideration
for the parts which ultimately might have meant the disintegration
of the whole. Equally it was met and defeated by another policy
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