Page 70 - 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. —

spirit unabated after fifty years, added that " the best co-operative
eloquence is business success." And John Stuart Mill wrote of
"
the Wholesale Society as a most important link in the chain of
co-operation," continuing, " there is no part of the co-operative
movement to which I would more gladly give my sympathy."
Professor Jevons and Commissioner Hill answered their invitations
in the same strain. Moreover, four hundred guests from the
highways and byways of co-operation were entertained at dinner
in the new warehouse, the day being Saturday, May 15th, 1869, and
the time five o'clock. The Manchester press either overlooked the
gathering or gave it very short paragraphs, but the Spectator, as
quoted subsequently in the Co-operator, devoted a column or so to
" federated co-operation in the North of England."
a free eulogy of
Referring to two hundred societies represented (191 precisely) the
writer of the report pertinently inquires :
Wliere are the two hundred and odd individual grocers, tallow chandlers,
and butter men who have established their own wholesale buying society and
warehouse ? Who expects them to do so ? Who does not linow that if they
attempted such a thing they could never hold together three years—let alone
five—even though puffed to the skies by the press. And who does not feel that
if they did so their monopoly would be little likely to be one for the benefit of
Yet ". eighty thousand men have done that
the public ? . . . . .
which the two hundred have failed to do, and every extension of their business
is a benefit, not only to the eighty thousand and their families, but to every one
who deals with them.
The Spectator correspondent noted with equal approval that
" speaker after speaker, and none more earnestly than the chairman
of the meeting and president of the Society, Mr, Abraham
Greenwood," laid emphasis on the new warehouse markmg the
opening of a future rather than the attainment of an end.
While the CW.S. thus was begmning the building of its
metropolis other events occurred to show the increasing interest
of co-operators in their federation. An agitation arose for " equal
representative power " at CW.S. meetings for each society " irres-
pective of the number of members." The point was hotly contested.
On one side it was urged that small societies at a distance from
Manchester were at a great disadvantage compared with the big
adjacent members of the federation. Behind the argument lay
that conviction which already had resulted in the recommendation,
accepted by the Committee, that all societies be charged the same
price for the same commodity on the same day. In regard to the
latter rule, the statement made at Quarterly Meetings that the larger
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