Page 399 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

Reforming the Constitution.
each branch. Six out of each full number of eight district Directors
thus had no part in the Society as a national unit. The natural
To some
result was a tendency of the provinces to separate action.
extent this local consideration found expression in the Pelaw group
of works in 1902, and when in 1904 the London brushmaking was
removed to Leeds an undesirable issue was raised of London
against the North. The problem could not be allowed to rest,
and in April, 1903, a Manchester District Conference met, without
any apology, to discuss the enthe question. The paper was by
Mr. Barnett, of Macclesfield, who justly commented upon "how
httle " the C.W.S. " operations and methods are discussed at our
conferences." The detail of a retiring allowance for the Directors
led to the vital part of the matter. Mr. Barnett proposed an
increase of the General Committee from " sixteen to twenty -four."
At that time each C.W.S. Director served on every sub-committee
in turn, taking his place by rota. The further proposal now was
made that the general body should be divided into two permanent
sub-committees, each of twelve members—one for distributive and
the other for productive piu-poses. This point was little discussed,
but it was unlikely that so sharp a division would have served to
unify a business which essentially was one business, whether in
Newcastle or Manchester, and whether selling flour or milling it.
At the December Quarterly Meetings the Macclesfield Society
moved for a special committee of inquiry, but the C.W.S. Committee
regarded the motion as " inopportune," and it was defeated. Mean-
while, the fighter matter of Directors' fees and retiring aUowances
continued to attract notice. In March, 1904, after the death of
Mr. R. H. Tutt, the meagre provision for C.W.S. Committee-men
during illness was commented upon in the London Echo. But at
Birmingham in the same month Mr. Barnett's paper, nominaUy on
a retiring allowance, was referred to as more properly to be entitled
" And at Oxford, although pensions
The Need for Reorganisation."
or no pensions still was the topic of nearly aU the speakers, a
resolution was carried recommending a special committee of inquhy
upon the whole subject. This resolution had been moved by
Mr. Rowsell, of Reading, and a motion to the same eil'ect from
Reading and half-a-dozen neighbouring societies appeared on the
agenda for the C.W.S. Quarterly Meetings of December, 1904.
Opposed by the C.W.S. because of its indefiniteness, the proposition
ultimately was withdrawn to come up again in six months' time.
The Newcastle meeting, however, carried a resolution asking the
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