Page 54 - 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.

sheet showed no more than fifty-four societies in membership;
and, all told, these represented less than 18,000 individuals. Only
thirty-two of the societies sent delegates to the half-yearly meeting,
held in the Temperance Hall, Grosvenor Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock,
Manchester, on Whit Saturday, May 21st, 1864. Concerning the
society members, the report stated that their aggregate weekly
business amounted to £9,500. " At least £5,000 of this sum is
expended in the purchase of commodities in which we deal, and yet
we have only been favoured with a business of £5,900 in seven
weeks." Was it due to the societies' members whose delegates had
created the institution, and %vhose capital Avas embarked in it ?
Was it the fault of the Wholesale Committee ? To both questions
the report said no. " Where the chief obstacle lies is plain. . . .
Many societies have akeady testified to the advantages they have
derived from our operations. Still greater benefits are in store if
we are only true to ourselves, and are determined that the general
interests of co-operation shall not be sacrificed to the prejudice or
antagonism of individuals."
In many instances the hindrance lay in the power behind the
throne. " In those days," says an old co-operative committee-man,
" the managers were the masters." Many managers and societies'
buyers had hastily concluded that if the Wholesale prospered their
occupation would be gone. This prejudice was discussed at the
first half-yearly meeting (the Co-operator, July, 1864), and freely
combated, it being pointed out that the managers could profitably
emplo}^ upon their departments any time saved to them. But
there Avere other reasons. The buyers liked to bargain, said Lloyd
Jones, reviewing the period in 1887. " They liked to give orders
and bestow patronage." Many of them had been trained by private
traders, and their second nature was to try their luck in the open
market. In some cases these feelings were shared by committees,
whose consequent bondage to the flattery and deception exercised
by a certain class of adept travellers was denounced by a corre-
spondent of the Co-operator. Other instances showed enlightened
committees doing their best to convert a faint-hearted membership.
Such tasks were made no easier by stories put about to the effect
that societies joining the Wholesale would be compelled to purchase
whatever it chose to sell. Altogether for some years a strong; anti-
Wholesale feeling existed, culminating in 1869, when a party of
supporters of " the open market " seceded from the Rochdale
Pioneers' Society.
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