Page 389 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Buried Treasure of Labour Value.
visitors ; it is also a pride of the West Ham Corporation. Originally
equipped to provide its own power, boilers and engines have since
been turned out of doors in favour of municipal electric power
supply, and this fact has been pubHshed with satisfaction by the
enterprising West Ham Electricity Department. Since the death
in harness of the former manager, IVIr. Bottomlej', the works has
been under Mr. R. A. Walhs, of Pelaw.
Among productive beginnings hoped for but not yet realised
there is the business of paper making. Great as is the co-operative
demand for paper, the total has been sub-divided by its variety,
and co-operators have been obliged to remain content with efficient
mercantile paper and twine departments at the chief centres. The
manufacture of lace curtains, Bradford dress stuffs, and sewing thread
have remained outside the activities of the C.W.S. for similar reasons.
Coal mining, touched upon in the account of the coal departments
earlier in this book, has offered a similar obstacle. There is httle
doubt of the Bugle Horn and other failures being fully compensated
for by successful C.W.S. collieries some day, but the Society
necessarily must go warily. Even in a latter-day productive
enterprise it has had evidence of the old futilities. The name of
Penrhyn will long be remembered as that of the capitahst concerned
in the most protracted of all labour disputes. Sharing the almost
universal sympathy with the quarrymen, the co-operative movement
liberally contributed to the strike funds. At the Co-operative
Congress of 1903, held in Doncaster, the movement took a further
step. It approved a proposal to form an industrial and provident
society for working certam slate quarries at Bethesda " as a means
of providing employment under equitable conditions for the slate
workers of that district." Mr. Redfearn, of Heckmondwike, asked
if there was trade to warrant the venture, and a very few delegates
"
were with him; but, when the resolution was put, " the response
"
(said the official report) " was a thunderous and unanimous ' aye,'
Six months later the C.W.S. took up 1,000 £1 shares. Other
co-operative societies, a few large trade unions, and a number of
sympathetic public men also contributed capital. Three quarries
at Bethesda were to be worked, and these had the good opinion of
experts. Mr. J. C. Gray, Mr. Henry Vivian, Mr. Richard Bell, and
other well-known co-operative and labour leaders were among the
promoters. The quarrymen's Hampden became general manager;
the accounts Avere put in safe hands ; co-operative societies mserted
clauses in their building contracts stipulating for the co-operative
309