Page 295 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

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By Tyne and Thames.
months later. Up to the end of 1895 the loss amounted to £31 ,884
this, however, after the mill had borne charges for depreciation and
interest, reaching to over £50,000, Losses like these, having such
complex contributory causes, were, at any rate, effectual in weaning
many minds from the illusions of profit-sharing. It was seen very
clearly that the few score of working millers inside the mill, however
carefully they watched the " flow " of the grain, and however
necessary their skilled labour was, could have only a relatively
slight effect upon results.
A change of management came in 1894, the mill then being put
under its present head, Mr. Tom Parkinson; and since 1895 the
yearly figures invariably have shown profits. In recent years the
jetty has been extended to reach deep water at all states of the tide.
Electric elevators on the jetty now are capable of taking up 5,000
tons of grain in forty-eight hours, while a vast grain warehouse and
a great group of silos stand on the reclaimed ground between the
jetty and the mill. Inside the mill, the capacity of which is over
seventy sacks per hour, electric driving has taken the place of steam.
C.W.S. flour milling plainly could not rest with the achievement
at Dunston. After its equipment the Tyneside mill was drawn upon
from as far away as Bristol; nevertheless, the C.W.S. still found it
necessary to import quantities of American and Hungarian flour.
When the dried fruit buyers went out to the East they had
opportunities on the way of seeing the great Hungarian mills and
pondering the moral. And remembering how short a time had
passed since almost every English countryside had included a corn
mill, it could not be supposed that a democratic body of organised
consumers would remain content to have their flour ground in far
away Minneapolis or Buda-Pesth. Opinions in favour of more mills
able to compete with the whole world grew in and outside the official
core of the Society, The West of England, being comparatively
quite unprovided for, was early in the field, but with a decidedly
premature demand. There existed an undeniably prior claim for a
Thames-side mill. This was urged in June, 1895, by the New
Brompton Society. The Committee stated that four or five years
earlier such a step had not been thought prudent, but a further
inquiry would not be opposed. AjDproved by large majorities, the
inquiry was made. It resulted six months later in the Committee
asking power to obtain land for a mill in or near the metropolitan
area. The West and South Wa,les were promised the erection of a
mill upon their side of the country at a later time. Notwithstanding
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