Page 297 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

At Avonmouth.
normal prices. Meanwhile a stoppage of the mill in 1908, during a
change from steam to electric driving, helped to account for the
heaviest loss. The capacity of the Silvertown mill is now fifty sacks
per hour; while, with this greatly enlarged production, the figures
in the balance sheet have been uniformly favourable.
The steady progress, against all obstacles, of C.W.S. flour milling
in the southern half of England was emphasised by the erection of
the promised Western mill in 1908-10. In September, 1907, the
Committee asked approval for the lease of some three acres of land
at Avonmouth, for 999 years, at £400 a year. While Manchester
has brought the ships of the sea to itself, the city of Bristol has
gone to the open water, like Mahomet to the mountain. Reaching
a long arm over the beautiful countryside between itself and the
Severn Sea, Bristol has made a new Avonmouth, and stretched the
city boundaries to include it. With this municipal enterprise the
C.W.S. co-operated when it leased its Avonmouth land from the
Corporation of Bristol. Being the first millers to settle on the estate,
the Society was able to choose a site beside the Corporation granary
and practically upon the quays of the deep King Edward VII. Dock.
When the mill, which cost in all £63,000, was opened by Mr. Lander
on April 27th, 1910, in the presence of delegates who had filled two
special trains from Temple Mead Station, the occasion resolved itself
into a civic function. At the luncheon, under the presidency of
Mr. ShilHto, the Lord Mayor of Bristol, the chairman of the Docks
Committee, and other leading citizens sat with a host of co-operators
from Bristol and South Wales in particular, and all England in
general. The Avonmouth mill is equipped for producing thirty
sacks per hour (with large extensions in view at the end of June,
1913), and is under the charge of Mr. A. H. Hobley; and there is
also a provender mill housed in its own special block.
The youngest of the C.W.S. mills, the Avonmouth establishment
has suffered what on all sides would be admitted as the misfortune
of a strike. Into an area of low wages, and comparatively easj^-
going working conditions, the C.W.S. brought its minimum standards.
This included a wage of 24s. for adult male labour, rising in the case
of the flour mills to 25s. and 26s. 6d. after one and two years' service,
for a 53-hour week. The rates for overtime brought up the actual
annual average wages paid to from 30s. to 40s. weekly. Taken
altogether the general conditions admittedly were much better than
in competitive mills. Some years ago the trade organisation of the
millers dwindled in membership until, significantly enough, its only
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