Page 503 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

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First Plans for the C.W.S.

1.—THE PLAN OF 1851 FOR A WHOLESALE SOCIETY.
In 1877 the Co-operative News published the following correspondence,
embodying the plan for a C.W.S. drawn up by Lloyd Jones in 1851, and
comments upon it by the correspondent who sent it, and by Mr. Lloyd Jones
himself.
The correspondent, Mr. R. Newton, wrote as follows :
" SiE,—In Mr. Holyoake's interesting history of Rochdale from 1857 to
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1877, in your issue of April 28th, the following passage occurs: ' Smithies
used to have himself a plan of a wholesale agency in his own handwriting. It
is many years since I saw it; and I forget in what respect it differed from Mr.
Greenwood's more matured plan. It will turn up some day with a theory that
Smithies had borrowed it from some two-syllabled quarter, just as it has been
declared that Mr. Greenwood derived his scheme from Jumbo.'
" Some two years since, in a conversation with Mr. Lloyd Jones concerning
a visit Mr. Smithies once made to our association, Mr. Jones told me he had
only a few days before found a paper Mr. Smithies gave him shortly before his
(Smithies') death. As I was curious the paper was shown me, and the
quotation I have given recalled to my mind the circumstance. Thinking
possibly it might be the one Mr. Holyoake alluded to, I have asked for and
obtained a copy, which I enclose, with the idea that many of your readers
would be interested in perusing it.
" Yours truly,
" April 30th, 1877r " R. Newton."
[copy of pkospectus.]
The rapid development of the co-operative business renders it necessary
that another and an important step should be taken by those who wish to see
association efficient and permanent.
So far, the co-operative stores secure their subscribers from the frauds of
adulteration and overcharge of the retail dealers, and divide among their
members those profits which previously went to the shopkeepers.
Much as this is, and many as are the advantages arising from co-operation,
pecuniary and otherwise, still they are but an instalment of the good which it
can produce amongst the people when they pursue it in an earnest, steady, and
busiriess-like manner. Experience must have proved to the managers of all
co-operative establishments that there is much loss attending the want of
power to go largely into the wholesale markets. It keeps the co-operative
store almost on a level with the ordinary competitive shop. Whereas, a
further development of the co-operative business such as that proposed would
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