FEEDING THE HUNGRY.
It has always been widely known that the ears of those responsible for the conduct of the Baking Society’s business are ever open to a call of distress from whatever quarter it comes. When the Society was young and struggling it granted a donation from its all-too-meagre funds to those left desolate by the Udston Colliery disaster, and on various other occasions similar action was taken. The winter of 1892–93 was one of the worst on record for the people of Glasgow and district. Work was so scarce that it was almost unprocurable, and the result was that thousands in the city were on, or over, the verge of starvation. There is no more hopeless position in which a man can find himself than that of being able and willing to work and yet having to trudge about day after day and week after week unable to find anyone willing to employ him, while those dependent on him are slowly starving. When to this lack of food and soul-destroying idleness are added the rigours of an almost Arctic winter, life becomes practically unbearable, and many hitherto honest and industrious men are driven to crime by despair. It is doubtful whether any more formidable and damning indictment can be framed against the present unco-operative system of society than is contained in the regular periodicity of these unemployment crises. A system of society which fails to provide means for the maintenance of all the individuals who comprise it is a system of society which contains within itself and provides with sustenance the seeds of its own decay.
The distress in Glasgow and the West was very great, and at the December quarterly meeting of the Society the committee were empowered to distribute 20 dozens of bread each week in the manner they considered best calculated to alleviate distress. This distribution was carried on for twenty-six or twenty-seven weeks, the Society distributing free in that time over 500 dozens of bread. When the following winter came round it soon became apparent that conditions were not going to be any better than they had been in the one preceding, so the committee again received permission from the general meeting of delegates to distribute bread on the same lines as on the previous occasion.
The summer of 1894 is still remembered in Scotland as the year of the big coal strike. There is this peculiarity about the economic position in the Central and Western districts of Scotland that, when from any cause there is a slackness in the coal trade, that slackness soon manifests itself also in the whole commercial life of the community. The strike of 1894 had the effect of paralysing industry all over the country, and soon distress was manifest, not only in the coal mining districts, but in every industry which was dependent on coal for motive power. By the beginning of August distress was widespread, and appeals to the Baking Society for assistance in feeding the wives and children of the strikers and of others in distress through the strike resulted in a special meeting of the committee being called to deal with the matter. At that meeting it was decided that the committee revive the powers granted them earlier for the purpose of dealing with distress. In the course of carrying out this noble work the Federation distributed several thousands of dozens of loaves.
The effect of this good work on the movement, and on the Federation in particular, was doubtless not apparent at the moment, but the growth of the spirit of brotherhood which it fostered must have had its influence in strengthening the position of Co-operation generally and thus, indirectly, the position of the Federation. The Federation cast its bread upon the waters, as the result of an impulse which was purely humanitarian, and any results of a commercial nature which accrued in later years were unsought and but a reflex result of a policy which in its impulse was entirely worthy and without ulterior motive.