Page 97 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Industrial Bank.

against which the prohibition of 1862 was still in force. But at this
time and afterwards William Nuttall stoutly maintained and
defended the legal right of the C.W.S. to carry on the business, and
influenced, perhaps, by the old spu-it of doing " what's reet," and
lettuig the law take care of itseK, on September 10th, 1872, the
Committee formally accepted the lead. At the same time a partial
deference to ParHament produced a mode of progress apparently
crablike. While agreeing to perform the main function of banking,
the Committee resolved " that our incipient department, so far known
as the banking department, be called in future the deposit and loan
department." Veiled in this manner, the extended scheme of
operations, under the management of Mr. Abraham Greenwood,
practically came into force on October 14th, 1872, when the
Failsworth Society opened the first cm-rent account—which they
promptly overdrew by cheque the very next day.
Meanwhile the fighting North had gone into action. For them
the C.W.S. had not moved with sufficient speed. Immediately after
the Bolton Congress, Dr. Rutherford, with other Tyneside
co-operators, called a conference of all the Northern Societies. This
conference " unanimously resolved," said the doctor {Co-operative
News, February 1st, 1873), "that a co-operative bank was desirable
and necessary in Newcastle." The result of this action was the
joint-stock Industrial Bank, which commenced business on July 8th,
1872, at 4, Royal Arcade, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Rutherford made
no secret of the fact that the chief necessity for such precipitate
action was the position of the Ouseburn Engine Works, the big
co-operative productive society of which he was managing du'ector.
The Newcastle bankers, it was said, had conspired to crush the works
by refusing to transact its business. Actually, this may have meant
that a natural prejudice was leading the bankers to exercise some-
thing in excess of their usual shrewdness. But the Industrial Bank
claimed to be founded for more than the Ouseburn engineers.
Including both individual and corporate shareholders, it appealed
to aU and sundry. In the words of its directors, it was established
" on the soundest and most approved banking principles." And
before the end of 1872 it was able to boast the support of "some of
the largest societies in the North," as well as of the Northumberland
Miners' Association. Banking, as its unsuspecting circulars remarked,
was a profitable business; and all the Industrial Bank profits " in
excess of 10 per cent " were to be equally divided between capital
and custom.
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