Page 61 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Society Proves its Value.
What was the proved value of the North of England Co-operative
Wholesale Society at the close of 1867? In the years of trial it had
won the adhesion as members of over two hundred and fifty societies,
from Edinburgh to Plymouth, although the business with them
amounted to no more than about £300,000 annually. Among the
old and big societies, the Pioneers, contrary to the recommendations
of its members, gave practically no trade support, Leeds contributed
nothing, and Halifax was outside; but for some two years both the
Oldham societies had been inside and doing business. It was the
small societies, however, that the Wholesale most claimed to benefit,
and testimony on their behalf was given to the writer in August,
1911, by the late Mr. Joseph Tyldeslej-, of Roe Green. He had the
odd experience of " happening across " the North of England Society
in Dantzic Street, about the beginning of 1867. Coming to work
in Manchester daily, he was deputed to buy for the Roe Green
co-operators, whose small but now prosperous store was then
struggling for existence in that Lancashire mining village. Before
his discovery, apparently, none of his fellow-committee-men knew
of any such institution. Since their start in 1858 they had been
" cheated and swindled." Sugar, in those days, they could obtain
wholesale only in big five-hundredweight tierces, the true weights
of which the society had no means of checking. " The canny traders
sent them, not by rail, which would have meant putting the weight
on the railway freight note, but by their own delivery, and the
society had to accept the weights. The committee were occupied
all their time in checking goods. We never knew the bottom price.
We would buy ' best,' and the trader would send 'twixt and 'tween.
We were always paying for first and getting seconds; and we poor
beggars would not know whether to keep the stuff or send it back."
"
With the C.W.S. they realised an advantage from the first," in
" "
absolute honesty of dealing." In all our forty-four years of
buying since, we've not had the trouble we had in one year then."
Mr. James Ashworth, of Burnley, remembers the C.W.S. coming as
" a great boon." " We could trust what was said, and were reheved
of a lot of worry." Mr. Horrocks, of Stacksteads, was then a buyer
who came round to the C.W.S. gradually, for, at the time under
discussion, " societies didn't reahse its existence." In buying from
private sources he had not been cheated, but discounts had been
kept back, and when a buyer lacked knowledge of things to his
advantage nothing was said. Through the C.W.S. " we got to know
more of the ins and outs and customs of trade." Mr. Hartley, of
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