Page 359 - 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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Causes of Difference.
While more than one C.W.S. factor3% ii^ varying degiee, lias
had a business experience similar to that at Leicester, the works
in the latter to^vn must not be taken as in all respects typical. The
present writer derives nearly all the memories of his boyhood from
Leicester, and he could advance many claims for the clean and
pleasant borough of wool and cheese, shoes, and hosiery. There
is, however, a difference of character between the folk of this and
other Midland centres and those of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the
North. Perhaps it has arisen from home industries continuing
until recently in the Midlands, although practicalty in the North
they died three generations ago. At any rate, while Leicester
resisted the vaccination law, and Northampton stood out for
political independence, the North showed the greater genius for
collective action. The difference proved itself again in Leicester
becoming the copartnership centre, while the collective consumers'
movement found its natural metropolis in Manchester. Curiously,
also, a difference similarly traced to conditions of industry has been
noted by pohtical observers, lookmg at the larger Midland centre of
Birmingham in its relation to mutual opposition to Manchester and
Free Trade. Yet, whatever the variation, perhaps under ordinary
circumstances it would have mattered little. As it happened,
there were elements in action which a chemist might describe as
reagents. Boot manufacturing still was affected by the coming
of new and newer machines. Further, the Leicester works, by its
very size, was quick to feel the ebb and flow of trade. To reduce
the staff was an " unpleasant duty " now and then forced upon the
management when the works was proved to be carrying a labour
cost as much as one-third higher than elsewhere ; and when a man
with ten or twelve years' service behind him is asked to join the
unemployed neither he nor his comrades are hkely to reflect upon
the problem with the calmness of armchair philosopM^. The result
of it all was that the C.W.S. at Leicester received more than its
usual share of knocks and frowns. Nevertheless, we may apply
here an epigram of Cardinal Newman's, although used by him to
give point in a very different manner. " A thousand difficulties,"
"
he said, do not constitute one doubt; " and a hundred everj'day
trials did not create a barrier to the progress of the C.W.S. works.
Notwithstandmg all fluctuations, the deUvered output of the three
Leicester factories—the Wheatsheaf, the West End, and Enderby
rose to a maximum of £428,531 in 1912. In 1908 the complete
group of the Leicester, Heckmondwike, and Rushden works yielded
283