Page 291 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Old Order and the Nev/.
change or compete for the trade necessary to make the new and
complex machinery profitable.
The second change lay in the opening up of the virgin wheat lands
of the world. This has had its greatest effect since 1875. From
that year American exports increased, and Indian and Argentine
wheats in huge quantities came into the market. During the
whole period (1875-95) the annual average price of wheat declined
much more swiftly than it did even during the ten years after the
repeal of the corn laws in 1846-9. The general average fell from
about 54s. per quarter to less than 26s., the extreme figure being
22s. 6d. in 1894. ^ This in itself was sufficiently ruinous for small
mills with no great reserves of strength behind them, and compelled
to meet powerful competitors.
And these two sets of circumstances produced another of a
purely commercial character. Under the new conditions the
successful mill must be on the great scale, and it must be so placed
as to do the largest volume and variety of business over the biggest
area and with the smallest cost in carriage. These necessities, as
they arose, pointed to the need of flour mills being situated by the
water side in or near the chief ocean wheat ports. Accordingly, the
mills answering to such conditions throve; while the inland mills,
and especially the small and local mills (with co-operative mills
amongst them) either laboured under disadvantages or were com-
pelled to go out of business altogether.
Hence the forced inactivity of the C.W.S. during the best part of
twenty years was not unfortunate for the Society. It prevented the
possibility of a false step during a period of change. Delay in this
instance was not dangerous. By the time the Committee were
agreed upon a beginning the new methods had won their victory.
The beginning, naturally enough, was made in the Newcastle
district. In 1872, as we have seen, the Newcastle Branch, although
hardly established, wanted nothing less than a Newcastle district
corn mill. The actual mill then dechned by the C.W.S. Committee
sitting at Manchester was the one afterwards bought by the Gates-
head Society, and sold without regret to the North-Eastern Railway
Company four years later. In the same year of 1872 seven Northern
societies federated as the Derwent Flour Mill Society, and began
business at Shotley Bridge, Durham. The Carlisle and Cleator
Moor Societies already had mills of their own. But as compared
'Chart, Supplemeiitarr to the Corn Trade News, February 24th, 1909,
227