Page 325 - 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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Developments at Pelaw.
did not like the transaction, and commented upon it unfavourably.
At Newcastle, however, they were consoled with the prophecy that
" before twenty years are over leasehold land will not be existing
in this country." Here was built the range of factories which
now stand in line on rising ground, as if drawn up for inspection,
along the main road from Newcastle to South Shields. Immediately
behind them runs the railway from Newcastle to Sunderland and to
South Shields, with the station of Pelaw Junction adjacent. The
drug, drysaltery, and grocery packing factory occupies over two
acres, and a cabinet and a clothing factory, an engineering depart-
ment, and a printing works effectively continue the line of buildings
and a general dining-room completes the premises. Work at the
drug factory began in May, 1902, but the visits of inspection which
took the place of a formal opening of the factories were deferred
until January, 1903.
On the whole, considering the difference between the two
systems of business, the C.W.S. has enjoyed a career remarkably free
from absolute coUision with private enterprises. This is due, no
doubt, to the defensive policy with which the Wholesale Society
has been generally content. To go steadily along its own way and
never to be tempted from the settled course by aggressive impulses
usually has been its sound, if unexciting, principle. Such battles
as it has fought have been for the most part accepted simply as the
alternative to turning back upon or abandoning its proper road. In
this manner the soap quarrel was thrust upon the federation, and,
earher stiU, in 1906, the development of the Pelaw drug trade led
to a conflict not of the Society's own seeking. Most people will
remember how the estabhshment of " cash chemists," working
through multiple shops, resulted some twenty or thirty years ago
in a cutting down of old-fashioned prices. In consequence of this
tendency the wholesale druggists took action to preserve their
own and the retailers' profits, and at some time subsequently a
Proprietary Articles Traders' Association was formed in the interests
of patent medicines and preparations. The trade settled down agam,
and co-operative societies, having httle concern with this business,
accepted the arrangements established and were let alone. But
the extension of the store movement to cover the selUng of drugs
did not cease, and by 1906 it had become considerable. Then it was
that the Proprietary Articles Traders' Association (P.A.T.A. for
short) opened an attack. The paj^^ment of dividend on purchases,
it contended, was equivalent to price-cutting, was a violation of the
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