Page 438 - 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. —

entered the service of the C.W.S., and remained for forty-five
years, living both to sail on a C.W.S. steamship and to count some
eighteen thousand persons as fellow-employees.
By October, 1912, the thousands had increased precisely to
21,210, exclusive of temporary workers. There are, of course,
larger employers. The Government and the big railway companies
easily would exceed the C.W.S. figure. The leading shippmg
companies possibly have longer rolls, and also the different trusts
and combines that flourish on British soil, if under this head they
could be reckoned singly. But it may be questioned whether there
exists anj' employer of a more varied body of workers. C.W.S.
employees are to be found on land and sea, in all parts of England
and abroad, attached to warehouses, factories, and farms. Men
and women, girls and boys—they include clerks and salesmen of
nearly all degrees, architects, chemists, Hthographic artists,
journalists, engineers, electricians, watchmakers, mechanics, shoe-
makers, weavers, bakers, printers, tailors, millers, bricldayers,
joiners, masons, metal-workers, knitters, corset-makers, seams-
tresses, cabinet-makers, chauffeurs, saddlers, packers, fruit-pickers,
seamen, potters, tobacco workers, dairymen, slaughtermen, carters,
farm labourers, and so on through another score of trades. The
co-operative movement was described years ago as a state within a
state. This, perhaps, was flattery, yet merely that part of it which
is the C.W.S., as an aggregation of workers, certainly resembles a
nation in miniature—a nation with no idle rich.
As the number of the C.W.S. employees grew the relation
of the Society with them more and more became a problem. The
first ideal, or illusion, was that of copartnership and profit-sharing.
This dispelled,^ the previous question remained. By all the
traditions of the past and the associations of the present, the Society
was bound to improve upon the measure of contemporary capitahsm.
The obHgation affected the opponents of profit-sharing even more
strongly than its advocates, for the adoption of that system was a
way of escape. It is remembered of IVIitchellthat practically his last
" Gentlemen,
words at the last meeting over which he presided were :
you are not sufficiently considering the servants."
The answer to the believers in bonus took the form of making
the best of the wage system. A neat way of recapitulating the
history of labour is sometimes put before us in three words
slave, serf, hireling, after which you are to add " co-partner."
' Seo Chapter XVIII.
348