Page 92 - 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.
the establishment of the North of England Wholesale Society this
obstacle was overcome in two or three ways. Half bank notes were
sent by societies and acknowledged, after which the completing
portions would follow. The drawback lay in a certain dilatoriness
on the part of the better halves. In their first reports the C.W.S.
Committee had continually to ask for a prompt second despatch, " as
dela}^ in this respect cui'tails our capital." Bank drafts were used
also, and by 1868 Post Office orders. Another method of trans-
mitting was advertised in the Co-operator at the beginning. It took
the form of an arrangement with the Manchester and Liverpool
Banking Co. by which societies could pay remittances for the C.W.S.
into the branches of this bank free of charge, or to their agents at a
charge of 2s. per £100. But the Co-operator advertisement, like one
or tAvo other apparently official statements of those days, was
premature and unauthorised. As recorded in the Society's minutes,
it was not until April, 1868, that inquiries were made into this
possibility. It was adopted on December 31st, 1868, and adver-
tised in the Committee's quarterly reports only after that date.
On the first day of 1870 the Wholesale Society's banking business
v/as transferred to the Manchester and County Bank, but without
prejudice to this same method of receiving accounts.
No further step towards a C.W.S. Bank was taken in public until
1872. Meanwhile the question of a co-operative bank was discussed
in the movement. At the first of the new Co-operative Congresses,
held in 1869, "a member of the British diplomatic service in
Germany " read a paper on the German co-operative credit banks.
J. M. Ludlow, Lloyd Jones, E. 0. Greening, the late Auberon Herbert,
and J. T. W. Mitchell (not yet a member of the C.W.S. Committee)—
all were in favour of action. WiUiam Allan, of the Amalgamated
Engineers, also spoke, urging that whatever scheme was adopted it
should be one which allowed for the needs of trade unions. The
resolution eventually carried was for a co-operative banking and
credit association on the model of the North of England C.W.S., with
provision for trade societies to become members. But there was a
special difficulty to meet. The Act of 1862 had definitely excluded
banking from the businesses which a co-operative society or
federation of societies might conduct. Legislators, apparently, were
still dubious about the financial security of such ventures. This
disability was not removed specifically until 1876, -when it was
permitted under conditions of which the most important was that
societies engaging in banking should possess no withdrawable share
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