Page 8 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

PREFACE.

vriie. The pennies and shillings of saving that accumulate into
quarterly dividends are not profits on trading with others, but the
savings of member-customers, resulting from a buying at first cost.
This is not the whole of co-operation; but it was the first
economic principle of the Pioneers. It was also a social and a moral
principle, because there was a constant inducement to bring more
and more people within the circle of customer-membership. The
larger and the steadier the buying, and the nearer to first cost, the
greater the saving to each and all. So, while the co-operative store
movement has increased its membership from thousands to millions,
through its federation, the C.W.S., it has reached back to the
warehouse, the factory, and the farm. The number of people affected,
and the general steadiness of their demands, has made it possible
for co-operative obligations to fall more lightly on individual
members; but the system is unaltered. A village grows to a city,
and individual freedom comes with the increase, yet the one is not
essentially different from the other. As represented by the C.W.S.,
the co-operative movement, that was a village, is now such a city.
Besides this economic principle the Pioneers held to the older
ideal of the control of industry by the working class. This, too, has
reached its largest historic embodiment in the productive works of
the C.W.S. ; and the following pages, therefore, go beyond a formal
record of events in C.W.S. history. They attempt a history of the
principles also, viewed in relation to the larger world that environed
their development. At the same time, the main business is Mdth
the story of the C.W.S. and, amongst other new material,
; it is
claimed that a full and true history of the origin of the Society is
now given for the first time. The little farm at Jumbo, the railway
arches, and the Ancoats rooms from which the C.W.S. issued,
like many of the men who met in these places, have waited long for
their proper honour, and we trust it is now accorded.

The thanks of the Committee are due and are very cordially
given to the many committees and officials of co-operative societies
and individual co-operators who so readily and kindly have supplied
information or assisted in various ways, enabling the writer to
supplement those official records of the Society and published
books, papers, and periodicals upon which this History mainly is
based. Of the illustrations, the majority are from photographs by
the C.W\S.; but many private photographs have been lent by
owners of copyright, whose courtesy is gladly acknowledged.