Page 304 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Story of the C.W.S.
issued. The flotation of the fii'st company had meant a purchase
of the business of A. and F. Pears for three-quarters of a miUion.
The second involved a payment to Lever Brothers (by Lever
Brothers Limited) of "just under £L390,000." The total was
made up by sums of £355.000 for freehold and leasehold premises
and plant, £225,000 stock in trade, £59,000 book debts, and " three-
quarters of a milUon goodwill." " This last item," said the Star,
" is nearly double the amount paid in the case of Pears's soap,
v/hich was at the time considered so exorbitant as to lead to adverse
criticism from most of the responsible financial journals."
Goodwill, of course, simply represents the attachment of con-
sumers and their wilUngness to buy. It may be earned by service,
as the favour of an employer is granted to a faithful servant, but
the consumer remains the principal. To him belongs the value
that he gives—a value within the power of the poorest to keep or to
bestow. And when poor people by the hundred thousand were to
be found giving to millionaires, even over co-operative counters,
it became a question as to whether they were not more generous
than just.
The Wholesale Society made up its mind to put the matter before
co-operators in a practical way by offering them more soaps of their
o\\n manufacture. Durham was recognised as an unsuitable centre
for larger operations. At the Durham works, for instance, there
was no space for a glycerine recovery plant, the operation of which
neither
counts for so much in the profits of modern soap making ;
was it possible at Durham to commence making milled soaps.
Again, soap is Uke flour in being a heavy article seUing at a
relatively low price and in requiring imported raw materials. No
inland centre, handicapped with heavy carriage rates, could easily
compete on a great scale with works beside deep water. Leaving
the Northern factory, therefore, to do its best for the Northern
district, the Committee in 1889 looked about for a modern site in
the ^Manchester district on which to build. Birkenhead, Wallasey,
Ellesmere Port, and Frodsliam were visited by a sub-committee.
At Frodsham £22,000 was asked for two acres of ground occupied
by old tumble-down buildings. Ellesmere Port, on the Cheshire
side of the Mersey, was then undeveloped, and an excellent site in
this place was strongly recommended by the sub-committee, but,
unfortunately, the proposal fell through. Eventually, largely
under the influence of Mr. Mitchell's enthusiasm for the Ship Canal,
another position was selected some twenty-four miles nearer to
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