Page 309 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

—
The ** Soap Trust," the Press, and the C.W.S,

announced on November 23rd, 1906, Punch duly printed a satirical
epitaph :
Stranger, please drop a tear upon the dust
Of one that did spontaneously bust;
Had I lived on they would have killed me dead.
So I committed suicide instead.
No doubt the general press attack upon the " soap trust " was
grossly overdone; but co-operators could not grumble when
unreflecting members for once were aroused to the possible public
dangers of private combination. And certainly there was a great
awakening. A demand for C.W.S. soap arose hitherto unheard of.
The Irlam works ran every available machine night and day, and
then could hardly meet it. The maximum weekly output jumped
to 660 tons, while the armual value of the supplies rose from £317,344
for 1906 to £522,014 for 1907. " This diversion of the soap trade
"
fi'om ordinary channels," said the Grocer in March, 1907, will be
regretted by all interested in the success of private enterprise;
the soap manufactm-ers concerned
. . . will find it difficult
to recover the trade they have lost and which the Co-operative
Wholesale Society has gained." That the C.W.S. Committee
shared the latter opinion was shown in December, 1906, when they
announced their intention of erecting two supplementary works.
One of these was to be in the London and one in the Newcastle
area. The first was built on the Silvertown site near to the flour
mill, and it began soap boihng on May 18th, 1908, the ofl&cial opening
following at the end of June. Owing to the peace and retrenchment
discharges at Woolwich Arsenal just across the river there was much
unemployment in the district at the time, which the introduction
of the soap works did its Uttle toward mitigating. A year later the
Silvertown Soap Works, under the immediate management of Mr.
Cowburn, was producing 110 tons weekly. In the Newcastle area,
meanwhile, a Dunston Soap Works had arisen, abundantly to
compensate for the loss of Diu-ham twelve years earlier. This
works it had been hoped to build in connection with the group
already existing at Pelaw, for at Dunston less than an acre of C.W.S.
land was to spare, but eventually it became necessary to fall back
upon the cramped but otherwise admii'able Dunston site. Its
difficulties, however, were siu"mounted with great skiU, and an
unusually attractive works building was the result. During the
last six months of 1912 the average soap supply from Dunston,
which has Mr. R. Brodrick for its immediate head, was 106 tons
243