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A Depot in Lancashire*

  it was not a federation of societies.  It was not the societies' own,
  and they felt no vital interest in  it.  One able and wealthy man,
  backed up by equally disinterested workers, could do much, but he
  could not  fill the place of a collective and democratic movement.
  On the business  side,  also,  the agency was too  far removed
  geographically from those whom it was meant to serve.  Yet it did
  not fail without doing its full share towards attaining future success.
  The business difficulty had led to the establishment of a branch at
   13, Swan  Street,  Manchester.  Mr.  Lloyd  Jones, who  is  still
  remembered as one of the keenest and most eloquent of co-operators,
  was put in charge as a missionary for the agency, and for co-operation
  in the North generally.  J. M. Ludlow, on tour in Lancashire and
  Yorkshire in October, 1851, wrote to the Christian Socialist, trusting
  that the branch might  "  yet become the real centre of co-operative
  business throughout Lancashire and Yorkshire."  Ludlow further
  reported that  "  the idea of a provincial wholesale depot is in the
  minds of all the Lancashire co-operatives.  .  .  .  that the plan
  for its estabUshment  is aheady drawn up  .  .  .  and that the
  only question respecting it is whether it shall be set up in Manchester
  or Rochdale."  As a matter of fact a co-operative conference had
   met in the Commercial Buildings, Bury, on Friday — presumably
   Good Friday—April  18th,  1851,  to resolve that  " it would be
   advantageous and beneficial to the various co-operative societies
   if there were a union of action established for the furtherance of
   mercantile transactions, and therefore this conference recommends
   the establishment of a central trading depot." A committee was
   appointed, and another conference held in Manchester on June 13th,
   when a committee of ioui was chosen to draw up a prospectus and
   invite financial support for a general depot in Manchester.^  This
   effort proved to be premature, but it was certain that the successful
   depot, when it came, would be in the closest possible relation with
   the retail societies of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
      In all big matters the right method is usually found by exhausting
   all the wrong; and another than the federal system of co-operation
   was yet to be tried.  During the course of its good work for the
   important Industrial and Friendly Societies Act of 1852 (championed
   in the House of Commons by Mr. R. A. Slaney, M.P.), the Society
   for Promoting Working Men's Associations held two co-operative
   conferences, in 1852 and 1853.  The first was in London, the second
   in Manchester.  The London conference appointed an executive,
             'A plan was drawn up by Lloyd Jones.  See Appendix I.
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