Page 420 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Story of the C.W.S.

shares amounted to £75,871 in the Hfe department, and £88,982 for
the other branches. Within Hmits the society undoubtedly had done
very well; and the gatherings of its agents and members in 1906
were inclined to celebrate it as the best of all possible societies. But
as compared with the C.W.S., and the Scottish C.W.S. in addition,
its scope and its resources were decidedly limited.
And the C.W.S. own insurance fund had been growing. We
have seen how simply it began in 1873, when the s.s. St. Columba was
wrecked off Holyhead, and the C.W.S. was compelled to protect
itself against risks which the Co-operative Insurance Company then
and until 1899 was debarred from undertaking by its own rules.
In Chapter XIX. it was told how the pohcy of keeping the
sweUing insurance fund intact, and enabhng the C.W.S. " to do its
own insurance without the assistance or intervention of outside
capitalists,'' triumphed over the disintegrative proposal of
' There was a further
allocation." This, of course, was in 1892.^
victory for the fund in 1898, after the coming into operation of the
Workmen's Compensation Act had thrown new Uabilities upon the
C.W.S. "Almost unanimously " in June of that year the delegates
at the Manchester general meeting agreed to the insurance reserve
being augmented from profits until it should reach £500,000. " The
Wholesale had risks and property insured to the extent of £2,127,100,"
said Mr. ShilHto, " of which £1,192,410 was covered in our own fund.
The Committee had to decide whether to pay to outside companies
or take the risks themselves. . . . Since 1873 they had paid in
claims £67,078, but they had received in premiums a little over
£200,000; therefore, they had practically saved by this form of
insurance for the benefit of the Wholesale Society £142,000."
" There had been a saving to the Society of £5,000 a year by doing
their own insurance business in the way they had been doing," said
Mr. Tweddell at Newcastle. Following these meetings, at the end
of July, 1898, Mr. Tweddell laid certain insurance proposals before
the General Committee, and was asked to submit them in writing.
The statement then shown made comparisons between the risks and
funds of the C.W.S. and those of tj^pical fire offices to show that " we
are not utilising the fund to anything like the extent we ought, and
that to a large extent the money taken from the profits for this
purpose, and not without protest, is being comparatively wasted."

' A delegate to the Newcastle Quarterly JMeeting of April 2n(i, 1892 (Mr. Slddell)
said he would like the fund to accumulate until the C.W.S. could not only insure for
themselves, but also for the distributive stores.
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