Page 448 - 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.

In March of that year they asked the Quarterly Meetings to adopt
the principle of employees' superannuation. "The idea," said Mr.
Stansfield, at Newcastle, " had sprung entirely from the Board
itself." " For fully four or five years," said J. T. W. Mitchell at
Manchester, " the Committee had been considering this question
and deUberating on what form it should assume. . . . Many
plans had been considered, but none of them were satisfactory,
until last year they came upon a plan that had been put forth by the
London School Board . . ." It appeared that the approved
idea, which the Committee had intended to reserve for detailed
statement, was " to appropriate out of the profits a sum equal to
about 2 per cent on the wages . . . about £2,122 a year."
From the fund so formed all employees of 60 or 65 years,
having ten years' service or more to their credit, were to draw on
retirement in proportion to that service. It was to be a sheer
"
benefit. We do not propose," said Mitchell, " that the work-
people shall contribute a farthing." But this was the period of
Bradlaugh, and the heroic individuahsm of the member for
Northampton considerably had impressed itself upon co-operators.
The very word "pension" was anathema. And notwithstanding
the Committee's discrimination between "pensions" and "super-
annuation," their proposal, too, was regarded as heretical. It
meant " putting a damper on one of the grandest characteristics
of the movement—that of self-dependence." " They would attach
to the rising generation a stigma," said another delegate. " A most
pernicious system, pauperising in its tendency and effect," declared
another. At the London meeting superannuation was opposed as
" a stumbhng-block always to the institution of bonus, which was
a principle of which they all approved." In vain was the strong
support which three prominent delegates not then members of the
C.W.S. Committee—^Messrs. Tweddell, Goodey,^ and Elsey—lent to
the Executive. They could not even obtain an adjournment, for
a majority was hostile altogether, and superannuation was ruled out,
yet not without Mitchell hinting at a re-introduction.
Nearly ten years passed, however, before the Committee again
asked for power to prepare a scheme. The old faith in every man
looking after himself then was dechning. Old-age pensions had been
popularised by poHticians and methods of superannuation adopted
by large employers. This time, therefore, the Committee had no
difficulty in obtaining the desired power ; and in September, 1897, the
•Mr. Goodey was oflf the directorate from 1885 to 1889.
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