Page 90 - 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.
Manchester for approval. Letters of advice and instruction came
from Manchester, and for further intercourse small deputations went
up to Manchester or came down to Newcastle. But, subject to such
approval, and under the special regulations prescribed from time to
time by the general body, the Newcastle directorate held entire
control as the governing authority of the branch. Yet in some
respects their lot was not a happy one. The employees they
engaged during the first year or two laboured under them with an
unusual amount of friction, which resulted in unusually frequent
changes. But when they put their confidence in their manager,
and recommended him to Manchester for similar confidence and
substantial recognition of it, they found their colleagues and
superiors viewing matters not quite in the same light. Deference to
Manchester seems to have been the rule at first, so that the General
Committee were asked to name some officer of theirs at headquarters
whose advice in the intervals between the General Committee
meetings would in all minor matters be final. Afterwards a spirit
of independence awoke; and minutes were sent up from Newcastle
which the Manchester Committee stiffly asked the district authority
to explain. It was in the interests both of unity and of a proper
constitutional place for local needs within that unity that a fifth
alteration of rules was effected in 1874. By these rules a fixed
provision was made for branches and their governance, and one
seat at least for every branch was reserved on the General Committee.
Better steps than these again were needed in time, but this one
marked an advance.
Thus the foundation of the Rochdale, Oldham, Middleton, and
"
Manchester men was extended to canny Newcassel," and thus the
men of the North made a place for themselves within a federation
that already had become national. We have quoted the word
" cann}'^ " previously in this narrative, but as used by a Lancashire
man in quite the opposite of the Newcastle sense of "all that is
kindly, good, and gentle." It reminds us that the North has not
only a character of its own, but, as in "canny" and in "hinny,"
its own especial terms. " Newcastle is an old fighting border
town," wrote the great journaHst who knew it weU, G. J. Holyoake;
" there is belligerent blood in the people.
If they like a thing they
will put it forward and keep it forward, and if they do not hke it
they will put it down with foresight and a strong hand. There is
the burr of the forest in their speech, but the meaning in it is as full
as a filbert when you get through the shell."
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