THE OPENING CEREMONY.
The formal inauguration of the new buildings was performed by Mrs M‘Culloch, wife of the president, who turned the steam on to the engine which was to drive the machinery in the department. In a short speech, Mr Bain then sketched the history of the Federation. On entering, each of the ladies present had been presented with a silver souvenir brooch bearing a representation of the building, and at the conclusion of the opening ceremony Mrs M‘Culloch was presented with a gold brooch of similar design.
A huge vehicular demonstration, in which over a hundred vehicles took part, paraded the streets of the city after the opening ceremony. Many mottoes were displayed on the decorated lorries and vans, amongst the most prominent being one which stated “Our answer to the boycott—other 54 ovens added.” The dinner took place in the East End Industrial Exhibition buildings, and Mr M‘Culloch, president of the Society, presided.
In welcoming the visitors, he referred to the inception of the Society in a little back court in Coburg Street, with a bakery capable of doing a trade of forty sacks a week, and contrasted that small beginning with the size and strength of the Federation that day; the possessor of plant capable of dealing with 3,500 sacks each week. He laid stress on the fact that the building had been done by the Society’s own workmen, and that over £11,000 had been paid in wages to the builders.
Mr Peter Glasse said the Society had proved to the world the power of the Co-operative movement. During its twenty-eight years of existence it had disbursed £143,000 in the form of dividends to customers, and during all that time it had never had a strike of its workers, because it had always paid the highest rate of wages and worked the shortest possible number of hours.
Mr William Maxwell, in the course of a stirring address on “Co-operation,” said that through the influence of the Co-operative movement the masses had learned that that inanimate thing called capital could be made into a willing and obedient servant, instead of, as formerly, a harsh taskmaster. There was a community of thought and action in the Co-operative movement which was bringing out much that was noble and sympathetic in human nature. The social gulfs which lay between the various classes in society would never be bridged over by the competitive system, because that system was the cause of these gulfs. That bridging could only be done by Co-operation. Their opponents were saying that they were lamentably deluded, but, if those opponents only knew it, they had aroused the members of the movement from that apathy and indifference in which they had hitherto lain dormant.
The point of Mr Maxwell’s address, which was punctuated with applause, was that the “boycott” movement was then at its height in Glasgow and the West, and everywhere attempts were being made to intimidate Co-operators into forsaking the stores. These attempts only resulted in giving the movement a splendid advertisement. Everywhere the opponents came out into the open they were defeated, and some well-known firms, which, until then, had been reaping large profits from their trade with Co-operation, found that the boycott was a double-edged weapon, and that the measure which they meted out to Co-operative workmen could be meted out to themselves by Co-operative societies.